Public charging prices not dropping when wholesale prices drop

liquid fule is only going to get more expensive, , estimated of over €3 a liter by 2030, some more, some less.

electricity is due and expected to start dropping.

in the long run, evs will cost the same to run as an ice, thats the stance from the government ( really its the civil service, but most people get that confused. )

Just had a look at the EasyGo abridged accounts for 2022 (2023 haven't been filed yet) and they were still in a loss making position then (accumulated losses of over a million). Will be interesting to see if that changes in 2023. They invested over a million in chargers that year and their borrowings seem to come from the parent company in the UK.

TL:DR These guys aren't making a profit yet. I suspect prices will stay as they are until they do. Which could be this year.

Except they use 10% straight line depreciation on their chargers, so the P&L cost for one year would only be about 100k. The accumulated losses were through more than one year, 2022 was ~580k. Previous year(s) 600k.

Edit: Just to note that abridged accounts filed with the companies office don't include a P&L. You have to work stuff out from the balance sheet and notes.

56c/kWh for AC charging is a joke. It should be significantly cheaper and should also have a night rate.

Lol. Fair.

Might be worth looking at Freshmile so. Doesn't cover all the rapid charging networks, but ESB eCars for one anyway. It works on a PAYG basis (minimum top up is €50 I think) and the costs are 0.30c/min + .30c kWh. By my calculations, this means you'll be getting cheaper rates so long as you don't use anything slower than 80kW. And be careful to stop charging once the charge curve goes below that point.

Edit: Also covers Ionity, but the price is nuts €0.85/kWh.

So if using it I'd stick to 100-200kW chargers. Those are ones that I've confirmed work on the 30/30 pricing model.

Don't agree. The state shouldn't do business. The state is a very poor entrepreneur.

The state is in no way an SME on charging network operation and maintenance. It has no incentive to please the customers or expand its operations. I think the story with ESB so far confirms that.

The state should let others (the private sector) to do business by correctly legislating and regulating. That's what's lacking. Grants are OK but deregulation as well creating a proper charging market would be better. And then mandating charger standards and mandatory charging installations at specific locations (urban areas especially).

This seems a bit contradictory. On the one hand you say that the state is a very poor entrepreneur and the on the other that the state should dictate to entrepreneurs what their business should do, whether profitable or not.

All your examples are of the state legislating for safety and are across the board. Legislating to force businesses to take on uneconomic activity is not the same thing. In fact there are examples of the state stepping in to cover areas where businesses have decided they are uneconomic or high risk. Microfinance Ireland provides small business loans where the main banks have refused due to the risk profile and likely no or poor return. The school bus system is another example.

So following those models, the state should probably subsidise such infrastructure if they are proven to be uneconomic.

Public transport is a public service. That's completely different. Most would agree the state should run it.

The state, however, doesn't run petrol stations, does it? Can you imagine it would? Would be a disaster. Neither should the state run charging network, petrol station network equivalent in the 21st century.

Privatisation isn't a panacea but neither is state ownership. We need a balance closer to the free market and the state certainly shouldn't be an entrepreneur, it's been shown to be disastrous in Ireland and elsewhere time and time again - it doesn't work, the incentives simply aren't there.

Now, if you look at Norway, the fast charging network is almost exclusively run by private companies (Tesla, E.On, Kople, Fastned, Recharge, Circle K, Shell, Esso, Eviny, Ionity). It's been tested and it works. Ditto, the Netherlands.

The state needs to create rules and enforce them, create incentives and let the private sector do it. There's no "Irish way" needed. No need to reinvent the wheel.

Edit: I'm also not a fan of the US approach, that's another extreme, just for the record 🙂

The issue here is this is a 'chicken and the egg' problem... Which comes first, the new market of EVs so private business can cater for public charging demand? Or the charging network so the demand for EVs increases?

The government (and ESB) looked at this problem and rightly so thought that the charging network needed to be in place to give some reassurance to folks who want to purchase an EV.

If left to private business, with no charging network would be profitable for many years (and a bigger risk if the EV market didn't take off), no charging network would have been built.

Again, I'll come back to my point, there wouldn't be many people buying BEVs if the charging infrastructure outside the home wasn't in place.

I know you say 95% of charging happens at home, and that is correct, but people wouldn't buy a BEV if they didn't think they could do a long trip with them. And to get over this hurdle, the government and ESB stepped in to fill this gap.

Also, you answered your own question. 95% of charging is done at home, so these fast charging sites need to make their money back from the remaining 5%. Very difficult to do on expensive infrastructure. And if 95% of your charging happens at home, why complain about the remaining 5% which you'll need to pay at a higher rate?

@D_D "…95% of charging is done at home, so these fast charging sites need to make their money back from the remaining 5%. Very difficult to do on expensive infrastructure."

But do the likes of Ecars have to make their money back, when a very high percentage of their funding is grants from the state?

@prawnsambo "But yes, you're correct and public charging prices will only come down when there are enough BEVs on the road to make that possible."

At the current prices that are being charged for DC fast charging there isn't going to be an increase in BEV sales, which are currently declining.