ESB public charging plans

BoatMad

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If 16.99 charge per month with free SCP usage is not a bad deal. After all the Irish oil money is not used to subsidise the charging network

Yes if that's all it was , don't engage in sound bite mis information

There's a further FCP charge
SCPs only free till end of 2016

The notion of oil subsidies in Norway is nonsense. Tax is pooled. Ireland via the esbs profits could easily subsidise the FCP network for several years if it decided to do so. There's plenty of money sloshing around here, it's a wealthy country with significant tax revenues.

There will be some queues at nissans fast chargers come April !!

DrPhilG

shanemkelly wrote: »

Bingo!! Spot on Padraig Mor.
This is, I believe, the biggest reason why this announcement is a huge mistake.

Realistically, (some) current owners will kick up and complain (rightly so if that's how we feel), but, IMHO, I doubt anyone will sell up and go back to the ICE.

Most service companies float an initial "horrendous deal" for a while safe in the knowledge that when they do eventually announce a more favourable deal, then customers will breathe a sigh of relief as they'll compare it to the original "horrendous deal".

Obviously the problem for potential eCar owners here is the double-whammy;
1) "It's not as cheap to run as I was lead to believe", and,
2) "If they've introduced this payment structure now, what the hell could they do in the future".

Uncertainty is the biggest killer for anyone entering a new market. The potential for the "perception" that eCars are not much cheaper that ICE cars has been increased as a result of this announcement.

This is true.

My wife’s reasons for suggesting an electric car were 100% environmental.

My reasons for actually making the purchase were 100% financial.

I balanced the extra initial cost (not actually that much because of the VRT rate) against the cheaper running costs and taking into account the higher depreciation vs an ordinary car. Also took into account the inconvenience of electric for longer trips.

It worked out as €1500 more initially, €2500 saving annually, and we weren’t overly bothered by the extra depreciation because we will most likely keep the car and return to a 2 car household next time we buy. So over the 4 years I intend to have the Leaf as my primary vehicle we would save €10k, minus the initial outlay giving us €8500 to put down on our next car.

The impact of this price gouging nonsense will reduce that €8500 to about €6500. IF the prices don’t increase any more… Even though we’re still saving €6500 on the current proposals, if this had come out a month before I purchased, I probably wouldn’t have taken the plunge despite the math still saying it’s a good idea.

bk

I don't see how new plans in April will make a difference, lets say they introduce a pay as you go option. What would the per minutes charge be then, 50 cent per minute, 60 cent?

To give you an idea, the cost of driving to Cork and back again at 60 cents would cost €90!!!!

bk

samih, Norway isn't investing so highly in EV's because of oil money, it is doing so because of the Kyoto Protocol.

Under Kyoto, it needs to reduce CO2 emissions, but it can't achieve that with improvements to it's electricity generation sector, as you rightfully point out, almost 95% of their power already comes from clean hydro.

So instead they are focusing on improvements in CO2 emissions in their transport sector (and other industries), so better public transport, EV's etc.

If they don't, the fines they would have to pay under the Kyoto Protocol would far outstrip what they have invested in EV's

In Ireland, our government is aiming to meet it's Kyoto requirements with improvements to it's electricity generation sector. It has already done a great deal, massively reducing its reliance on coal and oil, moving increasingly to less polluting gas and wind.

So unfortunately there is no pressure on our government to fund EV infrastructure, unlike in Norway.

It really isn't a cost issue, while Norway is richer then us, the cost of operating the EV infrastructure is pretty trivial compared to all the other infrastructure projects that the government subsidise in Ireland.

As an example, every new bus that Dublin Bus got over the last 5 years was fully paid for by the NTA, thus out of our taxes, not the fares of Dublin Bus. To put that in context each bus costs €370,000, they bought 90 last year at a cost €34 million, they will buy another 140 this year! And Dublin Bus is one of the cheaper ones, Irish Rail, Luas, motorways cost vastly more.

In comparison, the EV network was mostly already built using EU funds and the operating costs would be a drop in the bucket in terms of transport infrastructure.

The government should really be subsidising the running cost for the foreseeable future until EV car ownership really takes off. A reasonable charge of around 10c per KWh, pay as you go, would be fine to help stop people from unnecessarily using chargers, but this price structure is madness!

samih

BoatMad wrote: »

The notion of oil subsidies in Norway is nonsense. Tax is pooled.

There is a slight difference between a government/semistate (statoil etc) that have had a national energy plan with all domestic that has been planning for the future since 70's and the Irish government and ESB. Hint, only one of them is near bankrupt.

To say otherwise is being slightly delusional.

samih

Padraig Mor wrote: »

Just out of interest, are other parameters the same as Holland (I genuinely don't know)? How much is night/day rate electricity? Are FCPs single, sometimes unreliable, units placed considerable distances from each other with some prone to ICEing?

edit: quick look at the FastNed site there and the network seems much more comprehensive than here, with promises of at least 2 chargers per location, 24/7 support, security, free wifi etc. A rather more palatable offering than here.....

Yeah, our network is not comparable. Not sure how many evs there are in Holland.

But what the Dutch network shows is that what sort of pricing is needed to build and maintain a proper network.

samih

Just sitting at FCP at Roscrea where a white 152 CE Leaf has been charging at over 40 minutes. Current rate of charge is 5 A. Per minute charging, please welcome soon.

shanemkelly

samih wrote: »

Just sitting at FCP at Roscrea where a white 152 CE Leaf has been charging at over 40 minutes. Current rate of charge is 5 A. Per minute charging, please welcome soon.

Chargebump?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.redway.chargebump&hl=en

BoatMad

samih wrote: »

There is a slight difference between a government/semistate (statoil etc) that have had a national energy plan with all domestic that has been planning for the future since 70's and the Irish government and ESB. Hint, only one of them is near bankrupt.

To say otherwise is being slightly delusional.

The gov is awash with tax revenues. , so the ESB is going bankrupt 😭.....

BoatMad

samih wrote: »

Just sitting at FCP at Roscrea where a white 152 CE Leaf has been charging at over 40 minutes. Current rate of charge is 5 A. Per minute charging, please welcome soon.

Yep the Irish solution , penalise everyone to get at the few miscreants

BoatMad

samih wrote: »

Yeah, our network is not comparable. Not sure how many evs there are in Holland.

But what the Dutch network shows is that what sort of pricing is needed to build and maintain a proper network.

Why, do you know the Dutch EV economics ?

davidgdlt

In my (very biased an uninformed) opinion, this is a great example of what happens when you let (semi-)private companies deal with matters a State should be dealing with.

And putting aside the economics, freeing major cities from car contaminants should under any prism be a public matter. But even for those solely focused on the economics, surely the health problems caused by high contamination levels cost the State (us?) dearly.

More food for thought, assuming a percentage of the EV owners won't consider paying a flat fee for the odd time home charging leaves you in a bad place, what happens when we start seeing stranded cars here and there? Hint, some authority would likely come in play and turn this into a mandatory fee. Yet another made up tax paid directly to a (semi-)private company.

k123456

I have been interested in buying a leaf, until now

Not sure its viable now, falling petrol charges and excessive fixed charge for ELV

What worries me is the high monthly charge, if add this charge to your annual road tax, the fixed annual cost of driving one becomes excessive, when weighed up against short range of ELVS

Like any charge or tax, these generally go up every year, would be interesting to see what the monthly charge will be in three years time

Unfortunately, this will be bad news for resale values of ELV

scargill

Have signed the petition.
I'm due to change cars soon and had been toying with the idea of getting rid of 2 old-ish ICE cars and getting a new EV. Trying to do a cost comparison has been tricky enough with the depreciation of an EV being higher than that of a similar ICE.

To me this ESB announcement just adds in a little more uncertainty and is kind of pushing me away from taking a chance on an EV just yet.

Is the €17 per month going to be mandatory (like a TV license) for all EV owners. If you have two EV's do you pay it twice?
Is this just in effect an additional car tax on top of the €120 already charged for EV?

The 3 areas about EV ownership that concerned me most:
1. Depreciation (just had to suck this one up and hope a good PCP deal would help negate some of this)
2. Range Anxiety (not an issue for 90% of my journeys - but with some prior planning could handle this on the annual holiday or infrequent long journey)
3. Running costs (if 90% of charging done at home then this is pretty much fixed)

I think the ESB announcements will have an effect on those 3 areas....
1. Depreciation - if the cost of ownership is rising then will there be less of a demand for second hand EVs?
2. Range Anxiety - do we have to pay an extra 200 quid + charging costs for this peace of mind? Will these costs fluctuate?
3. Running costs - reading this thread and hearing other rumours about changes to night rates makes me uncertain about this again.

Perhaps I should wait a couple of years until all of this settles down - it just seems like there are too many unknowns at the moment?

Correct me if any of the above is wrong! (I'm still trying to figure out a lot of this)

samih

BoatMad wrote: »

Why, do you know the Dutch EV economics ?

No which is why I asked. Also sorted out my one and only rapid charge, 20 minutes at Roscrea so trip to Limerick from Dublin would have cost 6 + 1.50 at home. Beat that diesel.

bk

samih wrote: »

No which is why I asked. Also sorted out my one and only rapid charge, 20 minutes at Roscrea so trip to Limerick from Dublin would have cost 6 + 1.50 at home. Beat that diesel.

€12.50 for a modern Diesel according to the AA trip cost calculator.

But won't you also need to do another full charge in Limerick, another 20 minutes on the way back and at home? so:

1.50 (home) + 6 (Roscrea) + 9 (Limerick) + 6 (Roscrea) + 1.50 (home) = €24

Versus €25 for the Diesel!

Then add in your €17 subscription and suddenly it is looking pretty expensive!

Working out a trip to Cork and back:

1.50 + 6 + 6 + 9 + 6 + 6 + 1.50 = 36

Diesel:
18 × 2 = 36

The same! now add in the subscription fee!

samih

bk wrote: »

€12.50 for a modern Diesel according to the AA trip cost calculator.

But won't you also need to do another full charge in Limerick, another 20 minutes on the way back and at home? so:

1.50 (home) + 6 (Roscrea) + 9 (Limerick) + 6 (Roscrea) + 1.50 (home) = €24

Versus €25 for the Diesel!

Then add in your €17 subscription and suddenly it is looking pretty expensive!

Actually as this is once off trip I'm charging at SCP while having lunch and shopping so you are wrong. After we are finished it's another 110 km to the hotel, which should be OK without another charge.

Until trip I have been driving a full month, 1500 km with one trip to a FCP. You can calculate the price with my average of 14.8 kWh per 100 km. 14.8 x 150 x 0.08 x 1.1 so 30 EUR give or take.

DrPhilG

bk wrote: »

€12.50 for a modern Diesel according to the AA trip cost calculator.

But won't you also need to do another full charge in Limerick, another 20 minutes on the way back and at home? so:

1.50 (home) + 6 (Roscrea) + 9 (Limerick) + 6 (Roscrea) + 1.50 (home) = €24

Versus €25 for the Diesel!

Then add in your €17 subscription and suddenly it is looking pretty expensive!

We can all give an example of a trip that is now going to be cheaper in a diesel.

Buy the point is (for most people) that trip is not a daily occurrence.

For me going to Belfast or Dublin will not be cheaper in a diesel.

Going to Cork which I do once a year, it will be so much more expensive and inconvenient that I'll hire an ICE.

But the other 90% of my driving will still mean that overall, EV wins hands down.

That doesn't mean that I won't still fight these charges on principle.

bk

They will be charging for the SCP's at an unknown rate too in future, so you would have to include that, though that would be a pure guess at this stage.

DrPhilG, Oh, I agree, I'm sure it is still financially better off for some people like samih and yourself. But it is definitely less clear cut now.

I'm taking the Cork example as a personal example of something I would do at least once a month. I'm basically trying to run the numbers for myself and sharing them.

But what these numbers are telling me is that the ESB pricing makes BEV's as expensive as Diesel for any sort of long distance travel (Dublin to Cork, Limerick, Belfast, etc.) and potentially more expensive with the sub.

It seems to be that BEV's now only make financial sense for those with relatively long daily commutes, but short enough to get away with mostly cheap home/work charging.

With this new pricing, I don't think it makes much sense for people with short commutes or who do a lot of long distance travel.

EDIT:

Actually just crunched some numbers and my hunch was correct. The tipping point seems to be about 25 km's per day commuting. Less then that you would be better off with a Diesel/Prius. More then that and the BEV starts to be cheaper.

So if you daily commute is 25 to 100km, then a BEV may work out cheaper *, otherwise Diesel is better.

* Ignoring other costs issues around faster deprecation and lower maintenance costs, which are difficult to quantify and might make it better or worse.

That is actually kind of disappointing as the average daily commute in Ireland is only 17km. Which tells me BEV's aren't suited to the majority of Irish people.

Jaketherake

Ive cancelled the test drive.
I think we'll wait til April and see how it pans out before thinking about it again.
Too man y unknowns for now.

But Ive been trying to work something out and I cant seem to figure it out, so can anyone who might have done this trip help me work this out? Its the big trip we would probably do most often. Most other big trips we would do are only around 200Km and daily it wouldnt do more than about 20km on other days.

Heres the main one im trying to work out.
Every second weekend my wife takes my daughter to see her grandparents in Cahersiveen, Co. Kerry.
Normally she leaves our house in Naul, Co. Dublin at 3pm on a Friday and arrives in her parents at around 8pm.
So its a 5 hour trip. about 390Km. Coming back is slightly quicker on a Sunday leaving at 3pm. Costs about €30 - 35 in fuel each way at present I think.

Now I know she would have to do a couple of stops on the way, but i dont know where in a Nissan LEaf.
Can anyone tell me how many stops and more importantly, how long the trip would actually take in a Nissan Leaf?
And maybe the cost using the ESB charging structure in the Leaf?

Thanks

Benny_Cake

ESB have updated their site:

http://www.esb.ie/electric-cars/FAQ.jsp

The more I read about this the crazier it gets!

Will ESB facilitate an EV driver who arrives at a charge point with no charge but is not a customer?

In such a situation, a driver can contact our Customer Service Helpline Centre 01-2583799/1890 372 387 and can be signed up immediately over the phone for €16.99 per month to gain access to the network in order to re-charge their vehicle.

bk

Jaketherake wrote: »

Heres the main one im trying to work out.
Every second weekend my wife takes my daughter to see her grandparents in Cahersiveen, Co. Kerry.
Normally she leaves our house in Naul, Co. Dublin at 3pm on a Friday and arrives in her parents at around 8pm.
So its a 5 hour trip. about 390Km. Coming back is slightly quicker on a Sunday leaving at 3pm. Costs about €30 - 35 in fuel each way at present I think.

Ouch, that trip so regularly makes it look like a Leaf might not be very suitable for you. Working on pure distance theory, the reality might be worse:

Assuming a 24 KWh Leaf:

- Full 100% charge at home €2 120km
- 80% FCP charge, €6, 20 minutes each giving you about 100km, so you would need at least 3 of these one way.
- Probably a full 100 FCP charge, €9, in Kerry.

2 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 9 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 1.50 = €48.5 (excluding the sub cost).

If this was your only use of FCP's per month and you did it twice a month, then the cost including subs cost becomes €57

Time wise, you would be adding at least an extra hour each way.

By comparison an Auris Hybrid (similar size and price to a Leaf) would cost about €52 for the same trip and no extra time spent on the trip.

So looks like it would be more expensive and much less convenient for this trip. Any savings would have to come down to your daily commute and home/work charging.

Villain

Hi All, as I have mentioned previously I have a meeting scheduled with Gareth Davis head of ESB ecars next week.

Rather than another thread full of the same issues and also to allow people to make comments privately please feel free to PM with any points you would like me to raise, especially points that relate to your specific use cases.

I intend on printing the petition and bringing it with me also which will include all those comments. I am not a member of any association and I don't pretend to speak for all I scheduled the meeting for my own interests but I am happy to relay points people want me to raise.

DrPhilG

bk wrote: »

- Full 100% charge at home €2 120km
- 80% FCP charge, €6, 20 minutes each giving you about 100km, so you would need at least 3 of these one way.
- Probably a full 100 FCP charge, €9, in Kerry.

Sorry to make things even worse, but those times are not realistic.

I charged today from 12% up to 80%.

It took me 31 minutes.

Bearing that in mind, and the fact that the last 20% takes far longer, going from fairly low up to 80% would cost around €9 itself.

If he needed to get to 100%, it would cost probably about €15 in total for that charge alone.

bk

DrPhilG, ouch!!!

I was just working off my understanding based on what others said. So going by yourself, you would be mad to get a Leaf if you make any sort of regular long distance journey. It will end up far more expensive then a cheap diesel or hybrid and far longer trips.

So for my personal monthly trip to Cork would cost:

2 + 9 + 9 + 15 + 9 + 9 + 1.50 = 54.5 (plus €17 sub).

Compared to €40 for a Prius or Auris Hybrid.

For Jaketherake's wife, it would look like:

2 + 9 + 9 + 9 + 15 + 9 + 9 + 9 + 1.50 = 72.5 (plus €17 sub).

And it would be at least an extra 1 hour and 30 minutes each way! Jaketherake I don't think I could honestly recommend that, you are likely to end up with a very unhappy wife and daughter!!

DrPhilG

Definitely. Regular trips requiring fast charging will make an EV financially impractical.

For me, my daily mileage is about 40km. A few times a week I may need to go somewhere else in the evening. At worst I would have to charge at home on the day rate but not often.

I do Donegal to Belfast maybe 3 times a year. Dublin once or twice. Cork once a year. If the proposed charges come in I will probably hire an ICE for that trip.

This all depends on your usage as I keep saying.

Not many EV owners are buying a Leaf for a regular Dublin to Cork, Dublin to Galway etc, trip.

We have 2 cars and take the diesel on the really long trips so that's also another non issue and that helps keep miles off for the PCP but in reality for use those trips might be twice a year that is a pain in a Leaf.

I'm at 23,400 Kms since 20th January, Yes I have the work charge point now so it's a non issue however, if I were to calculate the 10 min charge needed to make my 134 daily commute over a 5 day week ( I work Shift so to make this easier I will calculate over 5 days Mon to fri)

I used to get home with 20-25% and didn't like to run the battery down low so in theory I would get away with 5 mins.

Made it home twice in Summer on one charge but had to reduce my speed that was unacceptable to me and I stress that running the battery daily to very low battery won't be good long term.

But let's calculate this as I was charging for 10 mins. That's 3 Euro's a day or 15 euro's a week, 60 PM + 17 monthly charge = 77 euro's + the 16 kwh roughly, to get me from home to work and back to the Naas charger costs 6.60 per week and 26 PM.

Total 103 Euro's PM.

Diesel 55 mpg calculated per tank at the pump and not some stupid trip reading.
Diesel costs 250 PM for 2,680 Kms V 103 Pm with charging.

So EV still saves a lot of money, however as I said I used to get home with about 25% I could use this to save more !

30 Kwh battery (deal for 2 K now) I would not at all have to charge to get home.

60 Kwh battery in a bit over 2 years would mean 200-240 miles from your home charge point on night electricity charged at 32 amps over 10 hrs. 0-90% but most people will not use all 60 Kwh daily so it's will always be ready for those longer trips.

There isn't going to me mass transition to Ev in Ireland until at least 2018 when the longer range electric appear and even then it;s going to take some time because of the diesel obsession.

It's unlikely the E.U will have the bottle to eliminate diesel or even introduce much stricter emissions, and it't unlikely the Irish government will have the bottle to increase taxes on diesel. So due to lack of political will Europe will continue to promote diesel well into the 2020's and hide behind Co2 as the necessity for diesel all because they don't want to deal with the realities of the problems associated with diesel and the real environmental impact and that of human health !

The general public will bury their heads in the sand with the "I don't care attitude" and keep fooling themselves that diesel is great !

We all have a choice and that choice has an impact.

I would highly advise people they should seek a lower per minute cost rather than Kwh because this could come back to bite ye.

ESB networks are not a seller of electricity this would be Electric Ireland and so can not bill per KWh and if they were to do this then the regulator would be involved and it would (probably ?) get a lot messier. And it could work out a lot more expensive. It's far easier to bill per minute for the use of the service not the electricity, then the ESB will get billed per Kwh, it's far easier this way.

So I don't know whether I am correct about this but it would imo be far easier for everyone to seek a lower per minute charge and insist that cold weather means longer charge times also as the battery ages which is unfair.

Villain

When I first looked at buying an EV the charging model which was envisaged was simple, you use the public charging points and the units used go onto your home electric bill so you decide on supplier and pay per usage with competition in the market. That is the ideal solution IMO, per minute charging is nothing short of s joke, no matter want ESB say not all FCP produce the same output.

NIMAN

The main point is that this news will now make some folk who were considering an EV to think again, with the likelihood that many will just say "I couldnt be bothered with that, I'll just stick to the diesel".

Thats the sad thing.

DrPhilG

Villain wrote: »

o matter want ESB say not all FCP produce the same output.

That has been clearly demonstrated today on the Facebook group.

I gained 68% in 31 minutes at a fast charger, yet another user at a different charger needed 37 minutes to gain 56%.

And both of us driving a Leaf.

You might understand if his was a 2011 with a much more worn battery, but his was a 2015, mine a 14.