ESB eCars

PickYourName

unkel wrote: »

You keep saying that, I'm not quite sure why. My view is neutral here. As I am with my personal money, I would like the government to be very careful and efficient with my tax payers money. Giving it away to a semi-state company without a tendering process is at best inefficient. At worst it might also be illegal.

Just as a matter of interest, how is any of that relevant to the subject of the thread?

If you and your pal want to rant pro- and anti-ESB viewpoints at each other maybe you could take the discussion someplace else?

unkel

PickYourName wrote: »

Just as a matter of interest, how is any of that relevant to the subject of the thread?

If you and your pal want to rant pro- and anti-ESB viewpoints at each other maybe you could take the discussion someplace else?

I'm only responding to unfounded personal accusations from that poster. Apologies if that meant the thread got off topic.

KCross

unkel wrote: »

You keep saying that, I'm not quite sure why. My view is neutral here. As I am with my personal money, I would like the government to be very careful and efficient with my tax payers money.

You take every opportunity to rant about ESB salaries and its misplaced as they are on a par with other services that the state provide.

If you want ESB staff to be paid alot less you can expect poor electricity service to follow. By all means complain about eCars lack of progress but stay accurate in your figures.

Also, Ionity isnt tax payer free either. Wasnt that established recently that it is tax payer subsidised at EU level which we pay into.

unkel wrote: »

Giving it away to a semi-state company without a tendering process is at best inefficient. At worst it might also be illegal.

I dont believe thats correct either. To the best of my knowledge eCars applied for funding from the Climate Action fund (€500m available to a miriad of projects of which eCars got €20m approved) which means it is legal. Any other company could do the same but they havent because its not a profitable business right now.

unkel wrote: »

Do you work for the ESB or do any of your family or friends? That would explain a lot.

No. Cant be any clearer than that.

Just because I defend someone doesnt mean I am part of it. I can see the wood from the trees. I dont think you can. You want to bash ESB at every turn.


All I'm saying is that you are/were misrepresenting the figures. Since I gave you the correct ones you've changed your wording in subsequent posts so maybe I've gotten that much through to you.

KCross

PickYourName wrote: »

Just as a matter of interest, how is any of that relevant to the subject of the thread?

If you and your pal want to rant pro- and anti-ESB viewpoints at each other maybe you could take the discussion someplace else?

Im happy to leave it but it is an ESB specific thread and fairly relevant as we are talking about their expansion of the network and funding of same.

Black_Knight

PickYourName wrote: »

I understand and agree with that.

What I don't understand and agree with are those saying here that there's no problem about there being no fast chargers in the city centre. Just becuase you as an individual don't have a need for them doesn't mean that they are not needed.

If they were provided, it would open up the possibility of far more EVs in the very place they are needed the most.

My problem would be that given the current available rapid charges in the country, adding ones to city centers would drive cars into centers. Main roads/commuter roads should be the priority for rapid chargers. When that's sufficiently supplied, add some in town centers.

I've not had to drive to Dublin, but I did Galway, and on my way I used rapid chargers, and when I got there I charged at a destination charger. If I needed to turn around immediately and head away from Galway I'd of just used another rapid charger

KCross

Black_Knight wrote: »

My problem would be that given the current available rapid charges in the country, adding ones to city centers would drive cars into centers. Main roads/commuter roads should be the priority for rapid chargers. When that's sufficiently supplied, add some in town centers.

I'd agree, it needs to be balanced. Rapids are needed on the main arterial roads/motorways the most, so that nut should be cracked first. There are still large parts of the country with no rapid for miles around. e.g I think all of Kerry county has one rapid!!!

Local authorities should also be ramping up the install of AC chargers along with businesses installing in their car parks.

Its about prioritising.

PickYourName

Black_Knight wrote: »

My problem would be that given the current available rapid charges in the country, adding ones to city centers would drive cars into centers. Main roads/commuter roads should be the priority for rapid chargers. When that's sufficiently supplied, add some in town centers.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

There’s no question there are insufficient rapid chargers for those making long journeys. My point was that there are none at all in the are of greatest concentration of the population, meaning EVs are not an option for many of them: they’re even worse off.

The other alternative – destination chargers a suitable density – is even longer off in terms of practicality; if on-street parking is where you leave your car at night, there would want to be a charger at pretty much every location to make that a viable option.

MJohnston

MJohnston wrote: »

As I said in my post that you seemed to have ignored, there is basically zero ICE infrastructure in the city centre, so EVs have a much better situation with the SCPs that are dotted about the place.

How many trips are people doing per day that are so far as to require a charge? I’d drive my i3 from Dun Laoghaire into Dublin the odd time for an errand, and while I might look for a SCP near where I’m going, it’s never like I *need* to charge. I’d say the same is true for every single person who lives in the Dublin metro area, because it’s just not that big of an area to need destination fast chargers.

There's a big difference travelling a few kms out of the city in an ICE when you got 600 Km + range that you can put back in 5 mins or maybe 10 by the time you pay compared to EV with 100-400 kms range that takes 30 mins to 1 hr + to fill, add a lot more if you have to queue.

AC points are great and all but there isn't even close to being enough of those around and that isn't good enough if someone need to fill up much faster + there is a lot more plug-ins with tiny batteries that need to use the infrastructure a lot more.

Then there are those travelling from much further from well outside the city that need to charge up quickly and may not make it back to a motorway charger.

We need lots of chargers AC/DC, the public are well aware of the issues regarding charging, if they see chargers everywhere like petrol stations and many chargers per site they might change their views on electric. The issue of charge time remains a big issue for many people.

Just an update on my trip to Sandymount.

I got there and back on one charge, 173 Kms and 13% charge left, wow, just shows what you can do when you ease off on the throttle, no Rex used.

I didn't do much over 100 Kms on the way up and half way back then some 105 and brief 110 Km/hr home also helped by traffic.

Black_Knight

KCross wrote: »

I'd agree, it needs to be balanced. Rapids are needed on the main arterial roads/motorways the most, so that nut should be cracked first. There are still large parts of the country with no rapid for miles around. e.g I think all of Kerry county has one rapid!!!

Local authorities should also be ramping up the install of AC chargers along with businesses installing in their car parks.

Its about prioritising.

Yeah. Killarney. Nissan dealer there too so there's a 2nd chademo charger I guess. Pretty poor though. Really limits us if we want to take a trip around Kerry. Nice few hotels in Killarney have chargers though, so at least they're a bit more clued in.

West Cork is similar. Bandon is the furthest, but again, limits a lot of EVs from exploring Cork. I can't complain though, I knew these things when I bought the car, just a pity ecars are so glacial when it comes to rolling out new chargers.

Black_Knight

PickYourName wrote: »

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

There’s no question there are insufficient rapid chargers for those making long journeys. My point was that there are none at all in the are of greatest concentration of the population, meaning EVs are not an option for many of them: they’re even worse off.

The other alternative – destination chargers a suitable density – is even longer off in terms of practicality; if on-street parking is where you leave your car at night, there would want to be a charger at pretty much every location to make that a viable option.

I live in Cork city. 2nd biggest city in Ireland, though I don't think that matters to my point. I never use the rapid chargers in Cork. I actually don't really use rapid chargers at all unless I'm going out of range. Cashel and Limerick are the 2 closest rapid chargers I've used.

Taxis and those without home charging are a different story, but we've not gotten our main roadways amply supplied yet, nevermind the minority of taxis and the difficult question of "how do those without parking charge their car?".

MJohnston

Yeah, the only way you'll encourage more people into EVs is if the word of mouth is positive. Which means you focus on providing an excellent experience for those who have already bought into full electric first and foremost. Right now most EV owners would give a pretty cagey answer when Joe Public asked them "should I go electric?", and you need to build up the infrastructure for those people before you're going to get more people into them.

Of course the other side of the equation is higher ranges, battery capacities, faster charging, etc. But all that will still rely upon a heavy amount of word of mouth.

PickYourName

Black_Knight wrote: »

Taxis and those without home charging are a different story, but we've not gotten our main roadways amply supplied yet, nevermind the minority of taxis and the difficult question of "how do those without parking charge their car?".

I've no idea if those without home parking are a minority in this country, but it has to be a very large minority if not, especially in Dublin. At the moment they are effectively excluded from EVs as the only viable model is charge at home/office plus rapid charger for long journeys.

If there were even a handful of rapid chargers in the city an alternative model of one or two rapid charges per week, plus top-ups when parked, would become viable.

My point is that I think both should be addressed at the same time, rather than continuing to exclude a large part of potential EV users completely.

Black_Knight

PickYourName wrote: »

I've no idea if those without home parking are a minority in this country, but it has to be a very large minority if not, especially in Dublin. At the moment they are effectively excluded from EVs as the only viable model is charge at home/office plus rapid charger for long journeys.

If there were even a handful of rapid chargers in the city an alternative model of one or two rapid charges per week, plus top-ups when parked, would become viable.

My point is that I think both should be addressed at the same time, rather than continuing to exclude a large part of potential EV users completely.

No no, in not saying they're a minority. Taxis are the minority. Apartment dwellers, on street parking house owners etc are the "how the flip do we help them charge?" group that we just don't have an answer for.

Adding rapid chargers in the city for those above doesn't give them exclusive access, and won't solve their predicament. It's expensive too (for the driver), so not really the carrot to drive adoption. What it would do, is bring more cars into the city for a splash and dash charge.

Slower chargers, sure. Loads of them please, every street. Tickle charge up over night while you park. Much less incentive to drive into the city for them unless you live there.

McGiver

unkel wrote:

But seriously, we need to stop this inefficient use of tax payers money. Let the private sector build fast charging networks. At no cost to us. Like in pretty much every other EU country. State subsidy for state companies installing hardware competing with the private sector is also possibly illegal. We could try to get the EU to intervene here.

Agree re public sector but the small issue is that the private sector in Ireland is as equally corrupted as the public one. Largely due to lack of competition as the market is really small and not really dynamic (see banking for example but other sectors too). And the corporates are pals with the politicians as well, who give them public money, doesn't really matter they are private.

It would need a solid regulatory framework and tax subsidies to kick start private sector building charge points. I'm more in favour of the former as in Norway and Germany (e.g. Legally mandate estates, airports, public buildings, malls, car parks to install them). If you leave it just to the market (especial with light regulation) it won't happen, the market isn't very competitive like say in the Netherlands. My 2 cents

McGiver

The Satanist wrote:

There are chargers going into the multi-story car park in the Pavilions SC in Swords. 4 parking spots on level 3 painted green with e- cars logo on them.

Out of how many spots? Few hundreds so <1%?

That's feeble. I say mandate this in legislation (as the Germans), can start at few % and be revised as the numbers increase.

liamog

Black_Knight wrote: »

No no, in not saying they're a minority. Taxis are the minority. Apartment dwellers, on street parking house owners etc are the "how the flip do we help them charge?" group that we just don't have an answer for.

There is an answer, it's hubs based in cities with multiple rapid chargers. Look at the efforts in Dundee. They took ol a disused petrol station and installed a number of rapid chargers with an on site battery to reduce peak demand charges.

This argument comes up repeatedly on this forum. Most current owners say you'd be mad to own an EV without home charging, then you suggest following the lead of another European country to resolve the non home charging problem and the response is usually, I don't want money to be spent on that infrastructure because I don't need it because I have home charging.

ESB should remove every 50kW charger from the inter urban routes and place them in a small number of multi charger hubs in our cities, where they can rely a number of customers who pay a subscription fee and charge regularly.

NTA can then franchise out charging sites on the inter urban routes with a minimum number and speed of charger required to the lowest bidder who can meet an SLA.

It's not rocket science, its the same model as The Netherlands, Norway and the UK. We have a financial penalty that will likely be paid if we can't reduce our emissions, transport is probably one of the few areas that we can direct the spend of money to impact right now.

McGiver

Oops, I seem to have caused a row about ESB!

Not my intention, but wanted to share that across the water in Scotland they can do 220 chargers for 6M concentrated in relatively small area and it's a PPI project not fully private. It's not completely OT but back to the topic now...

PickYourName

Black_Knight wrote: »

Apartment dwellers, on street parking house owners etc are the "how the flip do we help them charge?" group that we just don't have an answer for.

Putting them at the back of the queue as you suggest certainly does nothing for them.

Black_Knight wrote: »

Adding rapid chargers in the city for those above doesn't give them exclusive access, and won't solve their predicament.

They don't need exclusive access! Just somewhere they can go and get a rapid charge. As it stands, the nearest to me is in a supermarket car park in Lucan. To use it, I'd have to drive 20+ Kms round trip out of the city to use it. Why can't I have one in my local supermarket car park, less than 2 kms away? I could do the car and shop at the same time a couple of times a week. Job done: an EV is now practical for me as I have a rapid charger within easy reach of where I (and 10s of thousands of people like me) live.

Black_Knight wrote: »

It's expensive too (for the driver), so not really the carrot to drive adoption.

That's a pricing decision of those who provide the infrastructure and/or the government: it's not set in stone.

Black_Knight wrote: »

What it would do, is bring more cars into the city for a splash and dash charge.

That, frankly makes no sense: does having that petrol station on Usher's Quay encourage cars into the city centre? Or is it just a convenience for cars that are already there?

Black_Knight wrote: »

Slower chargers, sure. Loads of them please, every street. Tickle charge up over night while you park. Much less incentive to drive into the city for them unless you live there.

This is not a scalable solution. You'd need a very high percentage of chargers in place wherever there's on-street parking in front of housing.

I don't know what the combined population of (say) the post codes 1-10 are with this problem (I live in Dublin 8), but I'd be willing to bet it's in the 10s of thousands, if not over 100,000. All are effectively excluded from the possibility of having an EV by the existing charging model. Your suggestion of providing overnight charging for them would take 100s or even 1000s of chargers; a network of even 10 or 20 rapid chargers in places such as the larger petrol stations, supermarket car parks and the like would at least give some viability to owning an EV where currently there is none.

Black_Knight

"PickYourName wrote: »

That, frankly makes no sense: does having that petrol station on Usher's Quay encourage cars into the city centre? Or is it just a convenience for cars that are already there?

.

If it was the only alternate petrol station around, and you knew the closer ones (Lucan etc,) were occupied, for sure it would drive cars into the city... Because the existing set of chargers around Dublin is insufficient.

Granted I don't know the exact locations of Dublin chargers, but Lucan sounds a bit inconvenient, and o know first hand that naas is a pain in the ass to get to when on the motorway. Naas actually perfectly describes my issue. I didn't want to go into Tesco in naas, but I had no alternative, so I sat in queues or traffic making my way into the shopping center. Needless traffic.

PickYourName

Black_Knight wrote: »

If it was the only alternate petrol station around, and you knew the closer ones (Lucan etc,) were occupied, for sure it would drive cars into the city... Because the existing set of chargers around Dublin is insufficient.

Let me get this straight. Your reason for not adding to the infrastructure in Dublin is because you're worried people would actually use it?

Who are these people who will travel into Dublin to charge? Where are they coming from or going to?

Are you seriously suggesting someone would traval all the way into the city just to charge if they weren't going there in any case? Have you driven into Dublin recently, by any chance?

Black_Knight wrote: »

Granted I don't know the exact locations of Dublin chargers, but Lucan sounds a bit inconvenient, and o know first hand that naas is a pain in the ass to get to when on the motorway. Naas actually perfectly describes my issue. I didn't want to go into Tesco in naas, but I had no alternative, so I sat in queues or traffic making my way into the shopping center. Needless traffic.

I feel your pain. I’ve already said I agree with you that the existing infrastructure for people on longer journeys is inadequate. Where we differ is that unlike you, I don’t think anyone should be put at the back of the queue when improving that infrastructure and certainly not those who currently have no option at all, even an inadequate one.

As I see it, there are two basic models of EV usage: the first model is analogous to modern mobile phones: plug in overnight at home or during the day in the office and in daily use the thing never runs out. To supplement this, an occasional use of rapid chargers for longer journeys is also needed. The only practical way of delivering this model is home- or workplace-charging.

The other model is analogous to current ICE usage: you periodically visit locations convenient to where you live and/or work to charge up at a reasonably fast rate. This is the only viable option for those without any prospect of home or workplace charging. It is currently not catered for.

Both models can also avail of slower charging at locations where cars are parked in any case.

Both models also require a network of rapid chargers, though the usage would vary, depending on which model you are using. The obvious location for these is at centres of population and at the already existing sites on the main road network (not remote from it, as in the case you describe).

MJohnston

This is all a bit of a moot argument - we should be banning cars from the city centre nevermind discouraging them, and I think that said ban is not too far away from happening (DCC are certainly being more aggressive with pedestrianisation). There's zero point in wasting money on city centre fast chargers when they should and will be inaccessible.

Black_Knight

PickYourName wrote: »

Let me get this straight. Your reason for not adding to the infrastructure in Dublin is because you're worried people would actually use it?

People would resort to using it, when they'd prefer a main road option, like more chargers at Lucan or Blanchardstown. Those driving in the city should have plenty of range to potter around the city without having to charge. Even an old leaf with 100km range, that's a lot of city driving.

PickYourName wrote: »

Who are these people who will travel into Dublin to charge? Where are they coming from or going to?

Charge at destination chargers, hence my post saying we need more of these. Hotels are doing ok work at adding 1 or 2, but offices, companies, shops etc need to up their game. I guess at ~2% EV market penetration it's just not worth their while. I'd much prefer this than to have to charge at a rapid charger.

PickYourName wrote: »

Are you seriously suggesting someone would traval all the way into the city just to charge if they weren't going there in any case? Have you driven into Dublin recently, by any chance?

Needs must. I need to charge. Charger X is occupied, i'll try charger Y.

I've no quick solution for those who can't charge at home, but then again, neither do ECars, and ECars barely have the ability to fix the easiest problem of "lack of chargers on busy motorways".

But I guess you said it right a few posts ago. We'll have to agree to disagree.

PickYourName

MJohnston wrote: »

This is all a bit of a moot argument - we should be banning cars from the city centre nevermind discouraging them, and I think that said ban is not too far away from happening (DCC are certainly being more aggressive with pedestrianisation). There's zero point in wasting money on city centre fast chargers when they should and will be inaccessible.

I'm not talking about the city centre, I'm talkiing about where people actually live. I live in one of the inner suburbs, in Dublin 8. Housing density is much higher there than the outer suburbs, partially due to the fact very few have the space for off-road parking. Although public transport has improved - sufficiently to enable us to go from having 2 cars to 1 car in recent years - it's nowhere near good enough for us to get rid of that one.

As it stands, I'd very rarely bring the car into the city centre.

What I said was that I'd put a network of rapid chargers convenient to where large numbers of people live where they've no other option.

MJohnston

For Dublin 8, with crayons out, long-term I'd add a fast charging hub along the Crumlin Road outside the canal, another one along Harold's Cross Road maybe. There's no need for anything inside of the canals, which would pretty much align with where the petrol stations are at the minute.

PickYourName

Black_Knight wrote: »

People would resort to using it, when they'd prefer a main road option, like more chargers at Lucan or Blanchardstown.

Maybe I'm a bit thick, but I'm genuinely baffled about who those people are.

Where do they live? Do they have home-charging? Why would they go and use a rapid charger in a petrol station or supermarket car park or similar in Dublin?

MJohnston

For communities with a lot of on-street parking, it will be relatively easy to develop a communal charge-point program that uses the same lamp-post chargers that DLRCC have been trialling.

PickYourName

MJohnston wrote: »

For Dublin 8, with crayons out, long-term I'd add a fast charging hub along the Crumlin Road outside the canal, another one along Harold's Cross Road maybe. There's no need for anything inside of the canals, which would pretty much align with where the petrol stations are at the minute.

Although that would suit me just fine, I'd use some metric such as "within 2kms of all (high density) housing" rather than excluding as far out as the canals; there's a lot of housing within the canals (maybe that's effectively the same - I haven't checked?).

The point is they simply don't exist at the moment.

PickYourName

MJohnston wrote: »

For communities with a lot of on-street parking, it will be relatively easy to develop a communal charge-point program that uses the same lamp-post chargers that DLRCC have been trialling.

Are they rapid chargers? If not, it's not a scalable solution, unless (nearly) every lamp-post has them, which doesn't strike me as very cost-effective.

Mickeroo

PickYourName wrote: »

Are they rapid chargers? If not, it's not a scalable solution, unless (nearly) every lamp-post has them, which doesn't strike me as very cost-effective.

You don't need a rapid charger if it's a residential parking space, it would essentially be a home charger.

A rapid charging "hub" near residential areas like the ones in Dundee would be a good option for people who can't charge overnight though.