The key elements include six high speed charging hubs on motorways capable of charging eight vehicles simultaneously; 16 high speed charging hubs capable of charging four vehicles simultaneously; additional high power chargers at 34 current 50 kW locations; upgrading over 50 22 kW chargers to 50 kW, and replacing up to 264 locations with 528 charge points at the pre-existing pilot grade of 22 kW to next generation high reliability models.
Angry EV drivers and now that EVs are part of the culture wars you'll have other loons having a go at their staff.
As for charging rates, they are not likely to fall that much I suspect, not least until a major operator moves into dynamic pricing and the existing infrastructure has paid for itself. I suspect that the operators are depreciating their sites set up costs over 10 year periods or similar and you will not see reductions until the majority of capex has been paid for.
The other risk that the operators are taking is that battery size is increasing so you might start to see a shift away from rapid charging as range gets better and better - though that does open up the market to those that cannot charge at home. However further investment towards MW level rapid charging will be needed then.
At the moment, things are changing so quickly that all you'll really get by opening a charger is a local monopoly, I can't see the profit in it at the moment.
In comparison to the UK, our prices look relatively reasonable.
That's for sure a tweet with a story behind it
So it seems like there are some angry & abusive fcukers out there….
Pretty sure it was in one of the video's the IEVOA published, their action over the last couple of years and contribution to the four council EV charging strategy paper show how standalone commercial AC charging just isn't a viable business proposition. They took a lot of negative feedback for doing AC chargers on behalf of Tesco.
It seems to me that being an AC charging operator is really only viable if your being paid to offer AC charging as a service by the host instead of doing so as a seller of electrons. If eCars did want to get back into the business perhaps they could call it Community by eCars.
I've not seen a record of such commentary from ecars. I have anecdotally noticed they are actively changing AC units out for DC ones which is great to see. The price is still the issue though
That's very good value in fairness, cheaper than my (and I assume most others) day rate home tariffs
I used to use the freebies at the euro car parks in Limerick and the town centre in athlone, they were usually available as despite being free you had to pay for the parking which was capped at a daily rate so all very reasonable. Both have since been replaced by monta 70c units though
Like yourself I usually charge at home and also at night but can't very well do that when out and about... Also there's a huge section of our population who don't have the luxury to charge at home, if they were accommodated with better rates we would get better uptake of EVs in the country, which is supposed to be an aim of ecars
Absolutely, AC charging as a business only makes sense when it's provided as a value add, whether that be by a commercial entity such as a car park operator, destination, or as a municipal service
Our regular hotel in Westport (Courtyard) has become an AC hub! It was why we went there first as they had a charger on site as one of the first ecars installs over 10 years ago. It was free to use but is now paid. I'm happier with paid as it means it's likely to be working and available to use. Free charging promotes bad behavior
Or by locations as a means to attract customers/ visitors
We don't really public charge a lot at all, but one regular AC spot we use is the Chargepoint in Rathfarnham. 4 * 32A 3 phase AC chargers, which loadshare into 11kW each side. These are 30c/kWh. Almost half the ecars price. A better service too, as they are tethered, they always work, and we go to the dealz and the butchers there. Chargepoint have a few AC chargers around.
Another charger I used to use, and I checked the app it's still free to use, is the one at the VHI in carrickmines. Single phase AC but free to charge.
A free charger I used for ages was the 2*16A 3 phase chargers in Gorey shopping center. They used to be free to use, now they are 70c/kWh with the monta app.
To be honest though, I prefer tethered and paid for AC, it means it's likely to be working and available to use.
eCars have said they don't want to be in the AC charging business, cost neutral AC charging should be provided by local authorities.
Yes that is 20c on A/C that is provided by an operator that is there for the benefit of the public. I'll accept that it might not be a for-profit company. If we want to get more EVs in Ireland we need plans like that and that's my point exactly! Ecars by comparison is 56c or a factor of 2.8 more expensive
In fairness 55c is still less than the 60c+ that you quoted earlier. I've seen a handful of quickly disappearing free public AC charge points in Ireland but most of the time it's more expensive than ecars, take easygo down by hook lighthouse for example which is 70c/kWh plus an access fee...
If you bring facts here I will be as cordial to you as anybody else, that's a promise. I'm genuinely interested to hear where you can get AC charging for less than the ecars price
Non manufacturer funded charging at Ionity 73c/kWh.
The eCars network was partially funded by a grant (10m) from the government and supports a geographically diverse network. People often seem to forget that eCars aren't just a provider for commercially viable sites, they were given grants to justify pre-commercial investment so that a minimally viable network was available to you as a potential EV purchaser.
Ionity have rolled out to prime sites on major inter-urban routes and doesn't need to support a DC charger in Ballybackendofnowhere.
And the tax I pay funds the ESB network and is built into my monthly pay and road tax, VAT on everything, excise in the price of the car, ESB standing charges at home etc.
But one is twice the price of the other when it comes to charging the consumer
The name there would imply it's some sort of community sourced/funded unit so may be discounted. But one AC charger isnt related to the DC based discussion. Sure there's cheap and even free public AC charging here too. We go on holidays to france quite often and the shell recharge at the local Lidl was 55c. French Ionity pricing is similar to here, from memory.
The tesla network pricing is not really relevant as it's a (semi) closed shop with preferential pricing given to Tesla owners, and Tesla have always said their aim for supercharging was not to make profit but merely to break even. Even in Norway Tesla charging is 20c+ cheaper than others. What causes the delta between Tesla and non tesla networks in UK, EU, Norway etc? We're talking about Irish network/s gouging, not all over europe.
As an aside, I've been nothing but cordial to you, and I don't think remarks like "you'd do well to check your facts before posting in future" are helpful.
Difference there is we're not trying to move the general population to using supermarkets but we are trying to get 1m EVs on our roads by 2030. A target we, as a nation, are most likely going to miss, I accept that of course but charging up to 68c/kWh isn't going to improve that situation
If it were overpriced you'd see others like easygo or ionity or circle k undercutting them
A bit like Tesla do? Or are you suggesting that superchargers are operating at a loss?
60c+ in the rest of Europe yeah? You'd do well to check your facts before posting in future
Yes but you have an OEM subsidised deal. That is not available to anyone. It's the same as me telling you to charge your polestar at tesla sandyford.
Also it's c/kWh not c/kW.
Your Ionity rate is funded by the member manufacturers who use the network to help sell cars, cost of infrastructure is built into the purchase price of your car. Just like the capital costs of the Tesla network are funded by vehicle sales.
I pay 35 cents per KW on IONITY, 65 per KW on ESB equivalent fast charging.
We do not have publicly owned petrol stations and thus we do not need publicly owned charging stations.
They have not set it too high IMO, it reflects the cost of electricity plus supply charges plus a small margin. If it were overpriced you'd see others like easygo or ionity or circle k undercutting them. It's 50c/kWh in Norway, and 60+ in the rest of europe. UK is more expensive than here.
not going to happen, same reason we don’t have publicly funded not for profit supermarkets
Our rates are not dissimilar to charging networks in other European countries, I doubt eCars pricing has dictated pricing for an entire continent.
They set the market rate for fast chargers as the biggest operator in the country. The argument being made is they've set it too high, which you haven't denied
If you intend to run an EV only on public charging it does not make sense.
Yes, this is the problem, and the reason why we need a not for profit publicly owned chargepoint operator
It's not profiteering if they are charging market rates and any generated profit is returned to the exchequer anyway.
If you intend to run an EV only on public charging it does not make sense. That's not an Irish only issue either, it is true everywhere other than utopias like Norway (where, ironically, due to state subvention on domestic bills above 8c/kWh, it still isnt that much cheaper and is only made cheaper at all due to insane fossil fuel taxation) or California or Netherlands.
They did not own the network then, it was funded by direct state subvention. This was a mismatch of multiple projects including the ten-t project which also received EU funding. Ownership of the "network" was only transferred to them in 2018 as they were not making a profit when they were not pulling any revenue as charging was free. Other costs (customer support, billing etc) was funded direct from ESB group. I met with the then CER to debate the removal of the charging network from the RAB (regulated asset base) and essentially giving it to ecars. I wasnt in favor of it but the CER decided it was not in their scope to regulate charging.
Ecars providing free charging from 2011 to 2017 is not the same as ecars operating a for profit network now.
Ionity is 2X the price of supercharging and they (ionity) also received taxpayer funding.
Until 2018 ESB where operating the eCars network on behalf of the CRU, it wasn't a network that they owned. I suspect given the numbers of EVs on the road that it would have been impossible to operate a geographically diverse charging network in a commercially viable way until very recently. Even now I suspect a majority of eCars sites aren't breaking even if you include capital costs.
Charging networks and EV adoption are a chicken and egg problem. You need enough charging to enable EV purchases, and enough EV purchases to justify building out a charging network. We've seen from EasyGo what a purely commercial roll out without the support of combustion infrastructure looks like, and we've seen from CircleK/Applegreen/Maxol what it looks like when it is supported by convenience stores and fuel sales. Tesla and Ionity are the only networks that were able to build proper sites until very recently, both networks whose primary goal is to sell cars instead of electrons.
There is none, we’re being ripped off unless you have some sort of manufacturer deal like Polestar (and others I presume) with IONITY which is in the Tesla price range but there’s no IONITY south of Tipp or west of Athlone
Yes but I expect the operators that aren't 95% public owned to be profiteering on the back of the publicly owned one doing the same.
There is no value, public charging will cost you more than your diesel, that's a problem some people aren't able to comprehend. I don't think they're apologists as such, I think it's more the "I'm alright with paying silly money so the rest need to suck it up" mentality
Of the overcharging/profiteering by ecars, is what I'm looking for proof on... I have supplied my evidence of such and all you're doing is calling me names
How lovely
A lot of apologists on this thread weirdly.
Question - where's the value in public charging for the EV owner at the moment? (aside from Tesla).
