ESB eCars

Matter of interest, what would be an ideal place for you to wile away the half hour charging? Dancing girls, circus?

The offerings there work fine for most people on their way.

Nothing to do with penny pinching. The cables are a relatively low cost when compared to the overall cost of a charger. The reason cables are the length they are is down to a number of factors such as the longer they are the heavier they are making it difficult for less able bodied people, greater losses the longer the cable, there has been reports of drivers scratching their cars after having dragged the cable over the roof of the car, increasingly likely cable is damaged. Just some of the reasons.

Zevi design guidelines require longer cables. I foresee EV drivers coming on to boards complaining how unwieldy epower, Applegreen, etc etc cables are now that they are longer.

While the Zevi guidelines might not always be entirely feasible - there is much there that would make life much easier for many. The eCars setup in places like Mayfield , Crescent etc is almost the antithesis of the Zevi guidelines. Larger spaces, better supported and longer cables , better lighting and signage are sorely needed.

Really simple solution. Drive in spaces that you can go to the left or the right or have the room if you are towing something.

That's true.

I'd say that the public ESB charger was pulling in punters who were charging in the private carpark for the day, so they are moving to their own chargers instead to limit what they see as abuse.

Plus, it's a very exposed site in terms of the sea only being meters away, so I hope they bought good warranties on those new chargers.

5m cables will

Allow 4 people to charge

What could go wrong

We’re excited to announce that our upgraded site at Portlaoise Plaza, Junction 17 is now live! We’ve upgraded to 4 High Power 200kW EV chargers to enhance your charging experience.

To celebrate and show our appreciation for your patience during this upgrade, enjoy 50% off EV charging from 17-19th September during the Ploughing Festival*.

*Offer available 6am on the 17th to 9pm on the 19th Sept. Overstay fees apply.

The Plaza Group

4 Chargers = correct
8 charging points = also correct.

Fair point. What price points would the electricity and petrol need to be at for your theory to add up ? I know of 2 drivers that recently got PHEV’s as company cars to replace diesels. They generally plug in at work but not on the road. Price isn’t a factor as they have fuel cards.

With those Delta units once 2 cars are connected the charging drops to max 100kW each side. (250A). Not going to get 8x200kW. Also to draw more than 150kW on one plug you need 800V cars. In theory the limit for 400V cars is 160kW or 400A but I've never seen it. I saw 153kW max

I'm speaking about a typical install. I mostly use Carrickmines and Blanch which are of similar config. I easily get 150kW if I'm alone at a charger and leave before it drops below 90kW. ~65%SoC.

The Delta units are reliable, years ahead of units from J14, which was a big blunder imo. I don't think they are future proofed though. I imagine in a few years 100kW would be meh as 50kW it is now. I don't remember the last time I used a 50kW. I'd probably use it if there would be one at my local grocery shop.

Here an example. I overstayed a bit but the average charging power is still above 100kW.

I can't speak about Portlaoise if it is still power limited or not as I didn't visited that site in 3 years. If you didn't already do this, please add these comments on the plugshare app which would help potential customers decide if they actually want to charge there.

There was a website which was tracking them https://ecars-stats.com/ Unfortunately doesn't work now. The maker a boardsie, I haven't seen him in over a year.

Funny to say it is commercially sensitive. I have an interest in Fastned and they publish all of these and more. They even publish the salaries of CEO and board of management.

They even publish the gross profit per kWh along other financial indicators.

Interesting to see that even without network expansion costs they would have been at loss. If ESB ecars would publish this data, the critics would see the true costs involved. Sadly they choose not to, behind the curtain of ?? Can't find the word.

False sense of security?

I could see the argument about it being commercially sensitive. Fastned obviously taking a different approach.

11.4c/kWh is the net profit on a unit of electricity for Fastned on 29.8c gross is fairly average, in fact it's quite good for a business…

Most ICE filling stations run on a profit margin of about 1c-2c per liter of petrol or diesel, not sure if that's net or gross but still