Public / Private Infrastructure and Charging Etiquette

BoatMad

n97 mini wrote: »

The counter argument is if we don't mine it and burn it in a controlled fashion, it might catch fire underground and burn the place down! It has been known to happen!

sure smoking is good for you too.

BoatMad

liamog wrote: »

The same can be said of pretty much any sector.

A tiered infrastructure seems sensible.

in the vehicle sector , for example , fuelling is a understood process and refuelling technology is on a plateau and unlikely to change, hence reasonable assumptions can be made into the future

The same cannot be said for EV " refuelling " as unlike petrol electricity can be generated in numerous ways and by amateurs as well

ELM327

I see on facebook the NIEVOA have posted a response from the ESB stating that there will be "no charges this calendar year".

Obviously no one wants to spend more money so I'm happy on one hand, but on the other hand I firmly believe that charging for charging will remove the need for people to be told the "EV-etiquette" "rules".

BoatMad

ELM327 wrote: »

I see on facebook the NIEVOA have posted a response from the ESB stating that there will be "no charges this calendar year".

Obviously no one wants to spend more money so I'm happy on one hand, but on the other hand I firmly believe that charging for charging will remove the need for people to be told the "EV-etiquette" "rules".

Im not sure, it may actually simply just change the nature of the "abuse"

The situation could be resolved today with 30 minutes FCP session limits , the fact that its not speaks volumes

grogi

ELM327 wrote: »

I see on facebook the NIEVOA have posted a response from the ESB stating that there will be "no charges this calendar year".

Obviously no one wants to spend more money so I'm happy on one hand, but on the other hand I firmly believe that charging for charging will remove the need for people to be told the "EV-etiquette" "rules".

That is my view as well. People tend not to care about stuff that is free. Make them pay, even symbolically, and their attitude changes.

ELM327

I think it may have been you -boatmad - who suggested it before, but yes I think 30 minutes limit every hour is the best way to go.

Pity there's more chance of selling EV's in Abu Dhabi (robert llewellyn from Fully Charged episode excepted) than of there being any new initiative on that front.

BoatMad

grogi wrote: »

That is my view as well. People tend not to care about stuff that is free. Make them pay, even symbolically, and their attitude changes.

or just that the people with money turn into the hoggers !!:)

grogi

BoatMad wrote: »

or just that the people with money turn into the hoggers !!:)

Luckily we are poor nation, not many of those rich individuals.

BoatMad

ELM327 wrote: »

I think it may have been you -boatmad - who suggested it before, but yes I think 30 minutes limit every hour is the best way to go.

Pity there's more chance of selling EV's in Abu Dhabi (robert llewellyn from Fully Charged episode excepted) than of there being any new initiative on that front.

yes and I suggested into to eCars , at a recent meeting. they will do nothing until they have control of the network

Then we'll all pay , transgressors or not !

BoatMad

grogi wrote: »

Luckily we are poor nation, not many of those rich individuals.

yes we have fallen from 6th wealthiest to 14th , but sure lets keep the myth going


we're just the blacks of Europe, etc etc

KCross

BoatMad wrote: »

yes and I suggested into to eCars , at a recent meeting. they will do nothing until they have control of the network

Did anything good come of the meeting? Did they agree with any of your opinions? I ask that respectfully, just looking to hear what their vision of the future is other than "charge 'em high"!

Example... multi-charger sites, higher powered chargers (100kW+), charger reliability, charger blackspots, map updates not reliable, charging options (time or kWh or combo) etc etc.

I have an idea of the answers but did you get direct answers to those questions or was it all " we will do nothing until we get control"?! :mad:

Mope

I second this, KCross. Would be very interested to see what was said, honestly. What future is ahead of us and etc.

BoatMad

KCross wrote: »

Did anything good come of the meeting? Did they agree with any of your opinions? I ask that respectfully, just looking to hear what their vision of the future is other than "charge 'em high"!

Example... multi-charger sites, higher powered chargers (100kW+), charger reliability, charger blackspots, map updates not reliable, charging options (time or kWh or combo) etc etc.

I have an idea of the answers but did you get direct answers to those questions or was it all " we will do nothing until we get control"?! :mad:

the standard mantra was " The board will not provide any funding until the issue is resolved " blah blah

But there is not much strategic vision in eCars in general . My own view is they will " sweat the assets " until the pips squeak in they get control of it


on the other issues you mentioned ,They are aware of charger reliability issues and some of them have been fixed ( there was a big EFACEC upgrade done recently )

They have expressed privately that major issues wth the chargers were due to poor design and build of certain brands. It was very early days when the ESB started purchasing FCPS and so they ended in an experiment with all the major brands. They now know the ones they wont touch again with a barge pole.

As for pricing options, The ESB firmly believe in a time based charge avoiding the need for electricity supply licenses , in my opinion this is the unfairest system , but its the easiest to implement

I met the head of IT who was very proud of their real time updating map, I didnt have the heart to tear it to strips in reality !!. it wasn't the right forum

BoatMad

Mope wrote: »

I second this, KCross. Would be very interested to see what was said, honestly. What future is ahead of us and etc.

as the saying goes

" ask me any question "

grogi

BoatMad wrote: »

As for pricing options, The ESB firmly believe in a time based charge avoiding the need for electricity supply licenses , in my opinion this is the unfairest system , but its the easiest to implement

You have to think - what is more scare and in demand - electricity itself or access to FCP?

In my opinion it is the latter; one is exactly as much of a pain blocking a FCP for three hours in a Tesla or in a PHEV, regardless how much charge was taken. If charging by time solves additional issues - like the license you mentioned - even better.

BoatMad

grogi wrote: »

You have to think - what is more scare and in demand - electricity itself or access to FCP?

In my opinion it is the latter; one is exactly as much of a pain blocking a FCP for three hours in a Tesla or in a PHEV, regardless how much charge was taken. If charging by time solves additional issues - like the license you mentioned - even better.

The reason for time charging is that it avoids a direct comparisons with retail pricing because amounts of electricity provided are variable

Thats the reason its being considered, its a away of avoiding competition IMHO

its essentially extremely unfair, penalising , cars that charge slower , charge in the winter , , etc

The issue of " time at the charger " is easily solved by 30 minute session limits , on busy chargers , easily segregated by location and times of day

Thats nothing to do with pricing really

goz83

BoatMad wrote: »

As for pricing options, The ESB firmly believe in a time based charge avoiding the need for electricity supply licenses , in my opinion this is the unfairest system , but its the easiest to implement

I think time based charging is appropriate. While it seems unfair that some cars will charge more slowly than others, the owners know (or ought to know) this when making that purchase. We all knew that free public charging was not going to be free forever, but we enjoy it while we can.

What would be unfair, is to pull up behind a car that will take a couple of hours to top up when you could nearly fill a battery in 30 minutes. The car in front is taking up the resource for much longer than you to draw perhaps the same amount of charge. Time based charging would encourage people into better BEVs and the slower charging ones would be seen less and less at the FCP.

BoatMad wrote: »

I met the head of IT who was very proud of their real time updating map, I didnt have the heart to tear it to strips in reality !!. it wasn't the right forum

I'd have to have said something. I got stung because of their cr@ppy "real time updating".

unkel

Out of interest, BoatMad, which are considered to be the most reliable FCP and which are bad?

BoatMad

unkel wrote: »

Out of interest, BoatMad, which are considered to be the most reliable FCP and which are bad?

since the major upgrade just because christmas , The ESB believe the EFACEC units are good , followed by DBTS, the found the older one s( I cant remember the name , one was in Gorey ) to be problematic

They do comment that the whole FCP industry was essentially a cottage industry and was caught unawares by the explosion of requirement

equally there were specific issues, EFACECs factory suffered major fire in 2016 and this had huge impacts on the issues around EFACEC chargers in ireland . that was only resolved towards the end of 2016

The industry feedback ( and cross might have better input ) is that ABB chargers are very reliable

BoatMad

I think time based charging is appropriate. While it seems unfair that some cars will charge more slowly than others, the owners know (or ought to know) this when making that purchase. We all knew that free public charging was not going to be free forever, but we enjoy it while we can.

What would be unfair, is to pull up behind a car that will take a couple of hours to top up when you could nearly fill a battery in 30 minutes. The car in front is taking up the resource for much longer than you to draw perhaps the same amount of charge. Time based charging would encourage people into better BEVs and the slower charging ones would be seen less and less at the FCP.

Yes but why should you pay a bigger price for charging in the winter , or when your battery is at 70% then when its at 30% , imagine paying for diesel that depended on how fast you pump it.

The issue of overall time at a FCP, is easily dealt with by the idea of a max session time , because charging a price by time , just means that richer EVs will still hog,

grogi

BoatMad wrote: »

Yes but why should you pay a bigger price for charging in the winter , or when your battery is at 70% then when its at 30% , imagine paying for diesel that depended on how fast you pump it.

The issue of overall time at a FCP, is easily dealt with by the idea of a max session time , because charging a price by time , just means that richer EVs will still hog,

Because it is not the electricity you're consuming. You're consuming the time of the charger.

BoatMad

grogi wrote: »

Because it is not the electricity you're consuming. You're consuming the time of the charger.

Ive said, the issue off sharing of a physical resource is easily accommodated by session time limits

The fairest way after that is you pay a rate per kWh consumed

its ridiculous to suggest the better fair is to discriminate against certain types of EV drivers

why should a 8 year old Leaf owner , looking for 10 kWh , which he can get within 30 minutes, pay more then a 100K tesla owner that has a DC adaptor

sorry ,no one will convince me that forcing people away from FCPS is a good idea to spur the EV revolution

BoatMad

I'd have to have said something. I got stung because of their cr@ppy "real time updating".

I did correspond with the software people , despite the initial comments that the system was capable of 5 minute update timing it seems many FCPS cannot communicate in this way and hence the response of the network depends on the particular charger and its particular software version

In particular, there are lots of issues in the chargers pertaining to how it determines faults and how it reports them. for example, a major source of errors is comms errors, and in that case the central software has to have a very long time-out before it marks the charger unavailable , and even then the charger may be perfectly usable

BoatMad

grogi wrote: »

Because it is not the electricity you're consuming. You're consuming the time of the charger.

then SCP should cost a fortune !

BoatMad

Note that the major source of FCP frustration is cars finished their session , but left parked at the FCP, a pricing regime will not solve that

goz83

BoatMad wrote: »

I did correspond with the software people , despite the initial comments that the system was capable of 5 minute update timing it seems many FCPS cannot communicate in this way and hence the response of the network depends on the particular charger and its particular software version

In particular, there are lots of issues in the chargers pertaining to how it determines faults and how it reports them. for example, a major source of errors is comms errors, and in that case the central software has to have a very long time-out before it marks the charger unavailable , and even then the charger may be perfectly usable

That's fair enough. But they have no excuse for not updating the map when someone calls in a fault.

BoatMad wrote: »

then SCP should cost a fortune !

Different rate for SCP would sort that out. Less sought after, therefore cheaper to use.

BoatMad wrote: »

Note that the major source of FCP frustration is cars finished their session , but left parked at the FCP, a pricing regime will not solve that

So, if the car is left plugged in after the the charge time elapses and after a fair grace period, more charges apply, even though the car is no longer being drawing current.

cros13

BoatMad wrote: »

The industry feedback ( and cross might have better input ) is that ABB chargers are very reliable

ESB inherited a few ABBs with the NI network. The only initial issue I think was that ABB were insisting their partner only be used for servicing them which ESB didn't like. The general feedback from most of the european networks is that the ABBs are the most reliable rapid chargers.

The efacecs are generally good but still have CCS comms issues and DC breakers tripping low.

BoatMad wrote: »

Yes but why should you pay a bigger price for charging in the winter , or when your battery is at 70% then when its at 30% , imagine paying for diesel that depended on how fast you pump it.

The issue of overall time at a FCP, is easily dealt with by the idea of a max session time , because charging a price by time , just means that richer EVs will still hog,

I agree, the way to charge for power is per kWh possibly with a fixed fee for use of the charger. The issue of charger availability should be handled by providing more chargers per site, session limits and using the ground loop interface that most of the chargers have to detect whether the bay is occupied.

goz83 wrote: »

That's fair enough. But they have no excuse for not updating the map when someone calls in a fault.t.

CCS at Lucan is down. I know directly of two people who've reported it over the last 24 hours, and I confirmed it again at lunchtime today and called it in again. ESB has still not marked it as down on the map.

BoatMad

goz83 wrote: »

That's fair enough. But they have no excuse for not updating the map when someone calls in a fault.

The contary argument advanced is that ecars cannot update the mao simply because a call is made. They want to check it them selves before its declared at fault . I suggested that a " Question mark" symbol could be used by the call centre, such an icon would mean that |a user fault had bee reported, the unit might be OK, but the user is warned "

So, if the car is left plugged in after the the charge time elapses and after a fair grace period, more charges apply, even though the car is no longer being drawing current.

the chargers currently cannot determine if the car is plugged in but not charging
some have the ability to have indicative loops under the car etc

makeorbrake

BoatMad wrote: »

The contary argument advanced is that ecars cannot update the mao simply because a call is made. They want to check it them selves before its declared at fault . I suggested that a " Question mark" symbol could be used by the call centre, such an icon would mean that |a user fault had bee reported, the unit might be OK, but the user is warned "

There is a certain degree of merit to their position - but your question mark or similar notification status symbol should be implemented. At the end of the day, given that there is only a certain degree by which they can check things out remotely. Users on the ground access chargers more often than any Ecars engineer is going to frequent them.

Furthermore, we have a pretty active EV community. They can easily corroborate the status of a chargepoint in an instant. It could be that you have a couple of levels of notification;
1. One report - and 'question mark' symbol goes up on the map. A low priority request is sent out by ecars to their engineers to call and investigate.
2. Subsequent reports and chargepoint is indicated on the map as being offline. A high priority request is sent out by ecars to their engineers to call and investigate/repair.

The current system is causing the number one issue with EV usage in Ireland - which is not range anxiety - it's public infrastructure anxiety. It's a no-brainer to implement the above. They may have a depleted budget but to implement the above would cost little.

BoatMad

makeorbrake wrote: »

There is a certain degree of merit to their position - but your question mark or similar notification status symbol should be implemented. At the end of the day, given that there is only a certain degree by which they can check things out remotely. Users on the ground access chargers more often than any Ecars engineer is going to frequent them.

Furthermore, we have a pretty active EV community. They can easily corroborate the status of a chargepoint in an instant. It could be that you have a couple of levels of notification;
1. One report - and 'question mark' symbol goes up on the map. A low priority request is sent out by ecars to their engineers to call and investigate.
2. Subsequent reports and chargepoint is indicated on the map as being offline. A high priority request is sent out by ecars to their engineers to call and investigate/repair.

The current system is causing the number one issue with EV usage in Ireland - which is not range anxiety - it's public infrastructure anxiety. It's a no-brainer to implement the above. They may have a depleted budget but to implement the above would cost little.

Ill push it again at the next meeting, but the fact remains that until the CER decide , eCars/ESB will do absolutely nothing

remember thy are 7 million over the pilot budget and ESB is looking for the CER too refund that as well. they wont spend another cent

The current system is causing the number one issue with EV usage in Ireland - which is not range anxiety - it's public infrastructure anxiety.

I agree, but after 54,000 EV kms, Id say the aniexty is over stated and is exacerbated by the free charging regime , which is attracting users too chargers that should be charging at home

cros13

A second charger on site is the only medium to long term solution. It gives breathing room for repairs.

BoatMad

cros13 wrote: »

A second charger on site is the only medium to long term solution. It gives breathing room for repairs.

yes buy many sites cannot accommodate that . ultimately out of town moteway orientated charging clusters are the way to go , Less sites more chargers per site

but that requires longer range EVS to be common and thats a a few years away

cros13

The cars currently on the road are likely to make up the majority of short range EVs in the Irish fleet for the foreseeable future.

ESB also "didn't see the need" for CCS until after the cars arrived and there was no network to greet them. The numbers of CCS vehicles hitting the road afterwards were in part a result of the poor CCS network but ESB didn't see that.

Priorities when they get funding should be:

1. Replace ESB fleet vehicles with EVs, eat their own dogfood.

2. Build a trial multi-rapid station and get a reference design down.

3. Roll the reference design out as funding/demand allows, starting with the TII MSAs.

BoatMad

cros13 wrote: »

The cars currently on the road are likely to make up the majority of short range EVs in the Irish fleet for the foreseeable future.

ESB also "didn't see the need" for CCS until after the cars arrived and there was no network to greet them. The numbers of CCS vehicles hitting the road afterwards were in part a result of the poor CCS network but ESB didn't see that.

Priorities when they get funding should be:

1. Replace ESB fleet vehicles with EVs, eat their own dogfood.

2. Build a trial multi-rapid station and get a reference design down.

3. Roll the reference design out as funding/demand allows, starting with the TII MSAs.

of lets not give it to the ESB at all.

PS The ESB fully accept that the future is multi charger sites in MSA s etc

Soarer

Used the emergency stop for the first time this evening!

I was stuck for juice and on a tight timetable. The other chap's 171 Leaf was at 97% with 13 minutes left to 100%.
I couldn't wait, so hit the button and released the chademo charger.
Sure as eggs are eggs, he came out just as I connected mine!
He said "c'mere, I was charging there!". I explained my situation, his percentage and stuff, and he seemed ok with it.
I still felt/feel bad about doing it, but I think my need was greater at the time.

Wonder if he frequents these parts?

Orebro

Would it not be a good idea just to stick your number on the dash so at least you'd get a call in case you were just gone for a coffee or something?

Soarer

That's what I would've thought.

But there was nothing there, and he was nearly full. So I figured it'd be fairly ok.

Still didn't feel right though.

DrPhilG

I have a laminated card and a dry wipe marker in the car. I write my charge start time, likely time that I'll return, and my phone number in case anyone is stuck.

goz83

He might have already gone if there was a fee for the juice. Nothing to feel guilty about there. At 97% he surely had what he needed.

jamesthepeach

Good etiquette would be to leave the guns behind when charging your car.
A friend of mine was charging his leaf yesterday and nearly got hit by a bullet. One from a hail of bullets hit the ground inches from him while he was giving the car a wipe down just after charging.
He was laughing but a bit shook when describing it to me last night.
So, no guns at the chargers please or I'm definitely never buying one. Please treat the chargers as safe zones.

ELM327

jamesthepeach wrote: »

Good etiquette would be to leave the guns behind when charging your car.
A friend of mine was charging his leaf yesterday and nearly got hit by a bullet. One from a hail of bullets hit the ground inches from him while he was giving the car a wipe down just after charging.
He was laughing but a bit shook when describing it to me last night.
So, no guns at the chargers please or I'm definitely never buying one. Please treat the chargers as safe zones.

That was my first thought when I heard it was clonshaugh. Wonder if anyone was at the FCP. Glad to hear your friend is ok.

goz83

Getting very dangerous these days to charge your car.

That's the CP I would use (on the rare occasion I use it).

I have also done some bird control on the land beside it.....thank Christ I wasn't out yesterday. I'd have been taken down by the armed unit.

BoatMad

jamesthepeach wrote: »

Good etiquette would be to leave the guns behind when charging your car.
A friend of mine was charging his leaf yesterday and nearly got hit by a bullet. One from a hail of bullets hit the ground inches from him while he was giving the car a wipe down just after charging.
He was laughing but a bit shook when describing it to me last night.
So, no guns at the chargers please or I'm definitely never buying one. Please treat the chargers as safe zones.

thats what you get siting a FCP in Glasnevin !

and teh correct US answer is everyone should be armed at chargers rather then just the bad guys !!!

goz83

BoatMad wrote: »

thats what you get siting a FCP in Glasnevin !

and teh correct US answer is everyone should be armed at chargers rather then just the bad guys !!!

Clonshaugh

BoatMad

goz83 wrote: »

Clonshaugh

sorry of course, however there I suggest automatic firearms are best carried, maybe I need to move the gun rack from the pickup !!!!! to the Leaf