Similar unit not yet live at Macdonald's outside Belfast. In place since may 2024 but not yet live.
Yep, I added it to Plugshare this morning :) There's only placeholder boxes there at the moment, units haven't been installed yet, so it'll be a few months at least I'd say.
Yes, a bit of googling and it seems they take contactless card payments in the UK, no need for an app thankfully. Hopefully the same hardware here and no need for another app. With the requirements for card payments coming soon, it would be foolish to install something that doesn't take contactless card payments.
Thankfully providers are getting on the bandwagon for taking card payments, Circle K and Maxol will only take card AFAIK
Most accept tap now here I thought.
Yes you can unless you have a very rare Lightyear which has motor embedded on the wheel
Apple green
I think a lot of the legacy units still don't
Only newly installed units then. Wonder will they replace or add the tap to existing units?
Hopefully they do, but I wonder will Ecars leave it until they're replacing the actual chargers, or will they add them now
Some of the older 50kW units must be getting close to needing replacement at this point
I'm guessing the 150kW and up will have them added since they're new enough to not warrant replacement
McDonalds in Carrick on Shannon are another potential site in ROI - its strange though as the lines have been painted noting EV chargers, but no building works have started.
If the 50kW units need replacement now, they have only been in 12-13 years max. Less in fact, because the first batch were DBT units predominantly. There wouldnt be any return on that investment.
ECars won't care though, because they didnt pay anything for the installs!
What might kill them could be support, or lack thereof
The older AC chargers were replaced partly because they weren't able to get parts for the broken ones
EV chargers have been moving fast over the past few years so I wouldn't be surprised if models were being end of lifed a lot faster
Then you've got cases like Tritium where the company goes into administration and puts the whole product lineup in doubt
there’s far too many coming soon sites in Plugshare….. some don’t even have any groundwork started….. and some could be months and months away from going live…..
I agree. The filters in plugshare are inaccurate you filter on fast charges and such are often not right. Personally I've been caught out by a charger thats installed but not active.
At this point I'd be reluctant to rely on a charger that's not had a recent check in. I think the EV community could help itself by doing a 5 mins check in on any local chargers or if you happen to be stopped beside one. If it's not had a check in, in the last 3 months.
Excellent article on issues with making cheap EVS
https://insideevs.com/news/730788/why-evs-arent-cheap/
The issue I have with cheap new EVs is that a used better quality EV is a better deal.
You can hide or filter out coming soon sites in the app. I think hidden is the default. I like the coming soon because it allows you to link to actual location while discussing partial sites. Even for sites with units in place it can be a year or more before they become live. Sites such as Ennis motorway services is stuck in court battles for years, similar to what happened at Gorey motorway services. At that site the chargers were in place, probably live but the whole site could not open for legal issues.
It also gives some idea of future sites, lots of sites have been announced, such as the faster project border sites, I removed the sites that never made it even though they were announced. It's interesting to see how many sites are planned, often in clusters possibly due to availability of excess power in the area.
Gaming while charging :
https://www.engadget.com/transportation/vw-is-bringing-casual-multiplayer-games-to-evs-and-other-cars-090034594.html?guccounter=1
It's an interesting idea, but honestly I think Honda hit the high note when they had a HDMI in and V2L on the Honda E
Just bring your console of choice, or a laptop and play whatever you want, games movies or music. No silly apps required
I remember Electroheads popped a projector on the dash and were watching a movie projected against the service station wall 😁
Didn't some car have, or proposed to have, a screen you pull down like a blind over the windscreen and you could sit in the back and watch stuff?
That was the ID.Life concept from VW
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_ID._Life
The board didn't like the design so they canned it, demoted the lead designer and brought in the ID.2all concept instead
I was at Ionity Kill North yesterday and it had a payment terminal installed there, but not yet turned on. Single unit for all the chargers. They'll probably do similar elsewhere I'd guess.
Heres a random bit of news from overseas, but a bit of thinking outside the box.
FC Bayern Munich are to install a multi million Euro truck charging facility in their Fan Bus parking area for use on non match days. The stadium is on the junction of the A99 Munich ring road/ A9 Autobahns, so an awful lot of long distance trans-alpine trucks pass by daily.
Its strangely logical as modern sports stadiums are already connected to the grid with a large capacity as they have a large power usage on match days for lights, heating, catering, TV etc BUT only need a fraction of that capacity on non match days.
Of course MAN bus and truck (part of VW group along with Audi who are a shareholder in the club) based in Munich is a sponsor and they are the ones leading the project.
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/muenchen-allianz-arena-lux.FsuAFa2CZcaB1L3ja2H9Uw (in german, but translators exist)
I'm not sure if there'd be too many locations in Ireland comparible, but some racecourses like Ballybrit in Galway or the Curragh in Kildare are very close to the inter city road network and would have large carparks suitable for trucks.
Drove to a match there this summer and it's a wonderfully car-oriented stadium. But it's a world of pain if you didn't take careful note of where exactly you'd parked your car :(
Interesting
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240829-the-search-for-the-worlds-biggest-electric-vehicles
Folks, really sorry if this has been posted elsewhere, but I am toying with the idea of buying a (cheap) second hand Leaf (ZE1 I believe I need) and installing a bidirectional charger. You can get a secondhand one for circa €13k and we need a "runabout" for short distances anyhow. Has anyone looked at this? What flaws are in my thinking?
Please post link to a thread that covers this if there is one.
Many thanks
I'm guessing the idea here is to use the Leaf as both a car and home battery? Is the €13k for the charger or the whole lot?
Honestly I'd just get the car with a regular home charger and get a separate home battery, they've gotten a lot cheaper and you can definitely pick up 10kWh for a lot less than €13k
Decent points but no 13k for just the car, but if I get it right it's about 1k per 1kW for a battery so it's about the same on a per kW basis + we get the use of the car. Also other reasons to have a car (we currently only have 1 which is occasionally limiting) and the devaluation of a 2018 car is probably slower than battery. Thoughts?
Leaf battery degradation could be increased rapidly in such a use case. What is the cost of the bi-directional charger unit ? Would it work with something better than a Leaf ?
It'll be Chademo only so basically no
