I think Ecars have abandoned the SCPs

Orebro

So many red Xs on the map.

Mope

"Excellent" news to Zoe current and potential buyers...

unkel

Some people still don't seem to get it, those slow chargers were a bit of a mistake. A bet on the wrong horse. And certainly not the way forward. The only way forward is fast charging (but mainly home charging)

If this upsets someone, or inconveniences them, I'm sorry. But it would be a waste of money to spend it on maintenance of these slow chargers, let alone install new ones

This is the future folks, let's embrace it, not cling to the past:



And that's a small one. We need those all over our national and motorway network (well one every 30km or so), with maybe 16 or 32 bays in a few years time where we will charge in 5-10 minutes for a fee (a lot more than home charging)

I think we need both ac and dc, people need charging that suits their needs and not everyone wants to sit waiting for up to 30 mins and beyond for a car to charge when they can walk away and come back in 2 hrs after some shopping to a charge car and not have to wait another 30 mins at a fast charger or even 5 mins.

Now, they can have 20 Kw DC chargers also for all I care, but the point being , we don;t need to charge at 50+ Kw all the time and so only having high powered DC is a waste of a valuable resource.

Split the charger usage up, AC and DC, the cheap AC chargers for those who don't need to charge at max speed and for those wanting to come back to a charged car or nearly charged or at least enough to get home and DC on the long run.

But 20 Kw DC would be better than the AC points because only the Zoe and Model S with dual 10 Kw chargers can use the SCP's to their full potential anyway.

I know they're rolling out a lot of CCS 20 Kw points in Germany.

unkel

We're not talking 30 minute charges here at 50kW. We are talking a 5 minute charge at 400kW. Just about as long as it takes now to fill up with petrol / diesel

I know some people don't mind getting their cable out for a 2 hour €0.50 top up, same as some people like to smoke a cigar after their dinner in a restaurant. It's going to be a thing of the past soon

Hang on Unkel, for those people looking through the threads, they might think there's an actual charge for using the charge points which there isn't !

Yeah fine, have your 400 Kw, all well and good but again, not everyone needs this, on a motorway run then sure but for most people it would be extremely rare to need this level of charging.

If you think 400 Kw will be available soon then you're in for a shock ! pun intended !

We can go on this merry-go-round forever , you want ultra fast charging everywhere, I say it's not necessary etc , we need a charging system suitable for all needs. Slow/fast whatever. and while DC is the future so too will be various levels of charging powers. Put the 20 Kw points in the shopping centres and street points and leave the 100+ Kw on main roads, motorways etc. I'm not saying don't have them in town either.

unkel

I'm talking about now and the immediate future. You are stuck in the past. And no, let there be no confusion to people just dropping into this forum, currently all public charging in Ireland is free

Forget all about those slow chargers though. In a few years they will mostly be gone. Even the budget supermarkets like Lidl are putting in fast (53kW) chargers right now free for their customers to use in the UK - where public charging already is expensive. While their customers do their 20 minute (not 2 hour ) shop, they can fully charge up from near empty to near full for free...

n97 mini

Lidl putting in free FCPs? You sure about that?

Here, in the odd location where local authorities aren't stuffed full of dopes*, Aldi are compelled to put in CPs, but they're SCPs, and they're not free.

*Kildare Co Co takes top spot for dopes in my experience. Not a single CP on public land in North Kildare, despite it having a bigger population than Limerick city.

unkel

unkel wrote: »

I'm talking about now and the immediate future. You are stuck in the past. And no, let there be no confusion to people just dropping into this forum, currently all public charging in Ireland is free

Hmm, you did say "soon"

Anyway, I seriously doubt there'll be the grid capability of thousands of 400 Kw changers especially sites with multiple chargers.

Anyway, you can live in your fantasy world of 400 Kw chargers, we'll be saying the same thing over and over as usual, you know it's 400 Kw chargers that we'll all have (fantastic) and I say we'll have both slow and fast, who knows the 45-65 Kw chargers installed now might be the slow chargers in some years away.

For now though the network is seriously behind with no sign of new chargers being installed this year and perhaps it will be 2-3 years behind by the time someone installed chargers.

Oh wait, Tesla are already doing this, though sadly they will only charge Teslas......

BoatMad

There is no future in SCP destination chargers, its simply not a scalable solution

the_syco

It's simple. Until there are fast chargers everywhere, people will keep buying petrol and diesel as you can refill fast with them.

BoatMad

the_syco wrote: »

It's simple. Until there are fast chargers everywhere, people will keep buying petrol and diesel as you can refill fast with them.

NO

firstly home charging will be a big component

secondly larger range will reduce FCP requirements, as the larger range will mean people will make journeys and return home and then recharge

in the end , we will have a limited number high performance charging parks ,each with multiple charge points ( 20 + ) capable of refilling batteries in similar times to current petrol refuelling . Thats easily on the horizon.

BoatMad

BoatMad wrote: »

in the end , we will have a limited number high performance charging parks ,each with multiple charge points ( 20 + ) capable of refilling batteries in similar times to current petrol refuelling . Thats easily on the horizon.

Considering our charging is a year and some months behind I'd say you'd want to extend that horizon !

In the end getting Irish people in to electrics is going to be a serious challenge even with the fastest charge times. Unless it's got a manual gearbox and diesel engine it's simply not going to sell. Not until more restrictions are put on diesels.

the_syco

Deleted User wrote: »

Not until more restrictions are put on diesels.

Are Electrics that bad that you have to handicap the existing market?

No, the car companies will do that, they won't have a choice.

unkel

n97 mini wrote: »

Lidl putting in free FCPs? You sure about that?

Pod Point and Lidl offer free EV rapid charging at stores (as I stated in the UK). And not just any cheap charger, the best ones available in the market now (53kW ABB). Charging is completely free.

Linky

Several are installed already and the plan is for 40 in total.

zilog_jones

Considering the huge difference in cost and infrastructure requirements, I think SCPs are a good solution for now. Maybe they make more sense for destination charging in smaller cities and towns, i.e. ones where you could actually drive into the city centre (not Dublin)?

Also, at train stations or park and ride facilities there's not much need for fast charging - the car's probably going to be there for most of the day anyway.

And not every plug-in vehicle can use a FCP

Dont be at yourself

I think the end game is home charging + work charging (SCP) + car park charging (SCP), combined with FCPs along the motorway network and other key routes (Wild Atlantic Way, etc).

SCPs are not a great use of one-off parking spaces peppered around towns and cities.

ELM327

I think SCP will play a role, imagine in the future using AC charging to charge your 100 kWh car at 22kW, it would be done in 4 hours while you are parked at a shopping center.

Of course at that stage you would have the option of charging in minutes for more cost, at motorway services etc.

stesaurus

SCP definitely has its place for the future but purely as destination points. Some of the current locations are a bit stupid and nearly always end up iced anyways. Great if you manage to get one near an event you're going to but what about everyone else? They need to be plentiful and at specific types of locations.

Stick a few banks of AC charging at shopping centres and commuter locations like train/luas stations. That way the shopping centre encourages customers with a free charge and you are that bit more tempted to stay and spend more. Train stations are obvious, keeps traffic out of the city, free charging offsets the parking cost, off the train into a nice warmed-up car etc.

ELM327

Banks of 3-7-11 kw AC chargers at shopping centers I fully support.
Every SC should have a row of them, same as carparks also.

Even if there were a row of CEE 16a/32a plugs it would be better than the nothing that is there now.

zilog_jones

I think there should be a priority for SCPs in town centres rather than shopping centres - which ESBN have been doing so far. Of course there are issues with street-side chargers (awkwardness with orientation, misuse by ICE cars), not sure what's the best solution for that.

Orebro

This is from a post on the Ecars Facebook page from April:

"Ireland’s electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure is already one of the most advanced in Europe – with over 1,200 public charge points installed by ESB to enable EV drivers to recharge their vehicles and take longer journeys. Electric vehicles have zero tail pipe emissions and offer the quickest and best route to decarbonising our road transport."

This is very misleading by just quoting the raw number of chargers, with the great lack of FCPs around the country, with massive gaps in some areas.

Orebro

zilog_jones wrote: »

I think there should be a priority for SCPs in town centres rather than shopping centres - which ESBN have been doing so far. Of course there are issues with street-side chargers (awkwardness with orientation, misuse by ICE cars), not sure what's the best solution for that.

They should be clamped / get parking fines just the same as being illegally parked anywhere else - traffic wardens should be enforcing (in public areas anyway).

ELM327

zilog_jones wrote: »

I think there should be a priority for SCPs in town centres rather than shopping centres - which ESBN have been doing so far. Of course there are issues with street-side chargers (awkwardness with orientation, misuse by ICE cars), not sure what's the best solution for that.

To be fair to ESB, They installed anywhere that gave them permission.

Orebro

This is not the map of a SCP infrastructure being maintained properly - look at all the red Xs!

In fairness to them, the FCP points do get sorted pretty quickly in my experience.

ELM327

Jesus that's awful!
I don't really use the public network that much since I got work charging a few months ago, with the exception of one FCP in dublin, so I hadnt really been checking the SCP map.

stesaurus

zilog_jones wrote: »

I think there should be a priority for SCPs in town centres rather than shopping centres - which ESBN have been doing so far. Of course there are issues with street-side chargers (awkwardness with orientation, misuse by ICE cars), not sure what's the best solution for that.

Honestly why? To get any decent sort of charge from a Slow CP then you need an hour at the very least. If I go into town it's likely I'm drinking, shopping or just popping in quickly. So only shopping works timewise, hence shopping centres who actually have the car parks.

KCross

zilog_jones wrote: »

I think there should be a priority for SCPs in town centres rather than shopping centres - which ESBN have been doing so far. Of course there are issues with street-side chargers (awkwardness with orientation, misuse by ICE cars), not sure what's the best solution for that.

Apart from multi-story car parks I can't see how/why you would give priority to EV's in town centres. There is already a shortage of spaces so dedicating spaces to EV's would not be fair... it might make a few switch but overall not a good direction, imo.

SCP's are ideal for shopping centres, cinemas, park & ride, hotels, gym, train station etc where the car is going to be there for several hours. Taking valuable street parking spaces just won't work particularly as the number of EV's increases.

stesaurus

KCross wrote: »

Apart from multi-story car parks I can't see how/why you would give priority to EV's in town centres. There is already a shortage of spaces so dedicating spaces to EV's would not be fair... it might make a few switch but overall not a good direction, imo.

SCP's are ideal for shopping centres, cinemas, park & ride, hotels, gym, train station etc where the car is going to be there for several hours. Taking valuable street parking spaces just won't work particularly as the number of EV's increases.

Yup!

I think the eCars should just give up the ghost with regards to SCPs and sell them on to private ownership who will actually better place them and actually maintain.

zilog_jones

Orebro wrote: »

They should be clamped / get parking fines just the same as being illegally parked anywhere else - traffic wardens should be enforcing (in public areas anyway).

Not sure how it is everywhere, but the problem is once you're outside of normal disc parking hours (or pay and display or whatever) there is zero enforcement. Sunday in Limerick for example is complete bandit country - never mind EV spaces, parking on double yellow lines is rampant.

stesaurus wrote: »

Honestly why? To get any decent sort of charge from a Slow CP then you need an hour at the very least. If I go into town it's likely I'm drinking, shopping or just popping in quickly. So only shopping works timewise, hence shopping centres who actually have the car parks.

I think anything to encourage business in city centres would be good. I'd imagine spending an hour shopping is fairly typical (same for going out for a meal, etc.), and there's often more shops and more choice in the towns rather than shopping centres. I would only go to a shopping centre out of pure laziness, though granted, there are few city centre cinemas left around the country.

As I said, SCPs on street parking is maybe not the best solution, but they could be placed elsewhere. I still use the chargers in the Q-Parks in Cork even though parking is no longer free.

goz83

The SCPs are important. Not everyone needs them, but they are a part of the EV infrastructure and should continue to be rolled out AND maintained. I first became aware of EVs when I saw one charging at an SCP at the Rotunda maternity hospital. It just stuck in the back of my mind and a couple of years later, I am driving an EV

To me, they make more sense when they "peppered" around the place. When I go into the city I am usually in there for at least an hour, so an SCP makes the most sense in such circumstances. I do agree that they should be mainly focused in shopping centres and cinemas, but having a few on the city streets is not a bad thing at all.

While I love the AC network and find it highly practical I would love to see 20 Kw DC points installed instead or leave the AC points in shopping centres.

As I said , not everyone needs 100+ Kw DC and most ev's can't charge faster than 7 Kw on AC so the best alternative is 20 KW DC.


Faster charging would also mean we don't need to lug around such big heavy batteries. If you could charge 40 Kwh in 5 mins to 80% you wouldn't need much else. Without doubt the 65 Kw charging of the Ioniq is a lot better than waiting 40-50 mins to get the same level of charge in a 24 Kwh leaf and it's a smaller battery.

For instance a 24 Kwh Leaf can take 40-50 mins to get from 23-90%, the Ionig did it in 25 mins and it's got 7 more usable Kwh , I was definitely impressed.