ESB eCars

Black_Knight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117976920#Comment_117976920

Always nice to hear https://ecars-stats.com/ helping/scaring you into better planning your trip.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117978485#Comment_117978485

This a perfect use case of it, a pity it's required of course, but still - very useful!

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117963058#Comment_117963058

Are these new BEV sales only or does it also count second hand sales? Currently there are only 2 electric cars you can realistically get second hand, those are the Nissan Leaf (Chademo) and the Renault Zoe (AC43)

A better representation of data would be if you counted the registrations of BEV's in the last ~10 years to count how many physical cars of each charging standard are on the road

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117975467#Comment_117975467

Ah. The slow AC, sorry I thought we were talking about fastAC43.

Yes I see your point now.

AndyBoBandy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117978734#Comment_117978734

I think it would be fun to pop down to Ballacolla (in my Tesla), and slow charge on AC in one of the 3 eCars spots for a few hours... all while there are 8 Superchargers behind me... just to show up how ridiculous the eCars set up is with only 3 spaces where 4 cars can charge....

AndyBoBandy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117978705#Comment_117978705

New BEV sales only.

Last 10 years... At a guess, I'd say 6,500 Leaf's, 500 older Zoe's so ~7,000 non CCS cars, and about 23,000 CCS cars, so CCS by about a factor of 3::1

I'm sure someone would have more accurate figures though.

innrain

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117978782#Comment_117978782

From the old thread CCS vs CHAdeMO https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/114224142#Comment_114224142

I think that is up to 2020 but 2021 is much simpler

Black_Knight

I wonder how much AC 43 charging is down to "I may a well get some range while I wait"?

wassie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117972717#Comment_117972717

The newly opened Holiday Inn Express hotel next to the Circle K at Clonshaugh doesn't have any charging facilities. When I enquired they said they don't have/need any as there are charging facilities at the Circle K!

AndyBoBandy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117978925#Comment_117978925

Yeah, I did that a few weeks ago after a trip home from Mayo.. needed some fast charge & fast, but an MG taxi was using the CCS, so I plugged in the AC43 (1st time using one), and took the 11kW while I waited. Glad I did it too as the taxi couldn't disconnect as the eCars app went down, and he had no card (was waiting 2/3 weeks). Eventually he was able to stop the charge via a call to eCars, but not before he went +45 minutes.. and managed to get the plug out by locking/unlocking his car.

AndyBoBandy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117978949#Comment_117978949

There are 4 EasyGo chargers at the Clayton hotel next door, but surely that Circle K must be next in line to be given Tier 1 or Tier 2 status... and get at least 1x 150kW unit??

That site, whether its at the Circle K, or at either of the 2 hotels, or on the land surrounding it, is just ripe for a big hub of some sort... Location wise its just perfect. M1/M50 interchange... 2 minutes from the airport....

I'd love Tesla to put V3 SuC's in there.. would be a game changer for taxi drivers to want go for a Tesla.. Proper 250kW chargers.. and not eCars nonsense. Knocking out 1,000+ km's per day with maybe 2 20 minute charging stops...

mfceiling

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117976920#Comment_117976920

Is there a charger on the ferry Emmet? Worth checking with the ferry company.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117979780#Comment_117979780

Nope, none on Stena. I will ask about plugging the granny cable in - but am absolutely prepared for a PFO.

slave1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117980075#Comment_117980075

No is the answer when I travelled Belfast-Cairnryan in August

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117980082#Comment_117980082

yeah I would say I'm not even giving myself a 10% chance of it being an option.

wassie

Just put on a high-vis vest and connect up and no one will bother you! 😜

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117980521#Comment_117980521

Chuck an impeller driven generator off the back railing and run an extension lead to the car 😁

gerry_atric

Hi folks, 

I got my Tesla Model 3 LR back in March 2020, I love it and I will never go back to petrol/diesel.

However I have no possible way at to charge at home (apartment, believe me I’ve tried… a topic for another thread, another day), so since getting the car I have been about 99% reliable on the public network - mainly ESB eCars. And it’s been fairly OK…. Up until the last couple of months….

So far in 2021 I have charged up over 2700kWh with eCars alone but it is starting to get really difficult. I knew once Covid restrictions ended it would be trickier finding available chargers, but now with the massive increase in new electric cars around (mainly ID4 by the looks of it), charging is becoming a nightmare for me.

Between chargers showing as available on the app but actually being broken when you get there and there being so few available a lot of the time, it is very clear that there are just not enough charging points. (Strangely enough I have very little issues with ICEing in my area.)

I usually charge on the 22kW chargers and if those are unavailable on the 7kW ones (why on earth are these the same price per unit as 22kW btw?), and then occasionally on the 50kW units. However the 50kW units create an issue for me, 45mins is very often not long enough for me to get the desired amount of charge. So twice I have decided it was worth my while to pay the overstay of €5 and both times I was then cut off at exactly 1 hour. Is there anywhere that states that you can’t continue to charge beyond 1 hour, even if you’re happy to pay the overstay fee? (And I never bother to slow charge at the 50kW chargers because I would end up blocking one of the spaces for far too long).

I really hope eCars are planning on rolling out A LOT more chargers (of any description) because this is going to become an absolute nightmare for a lot of people in the very near future.

AndyBoBandy

You know that eCars have already stated that there will be No New AC sites being installed…… so what we have is what we’ll get.

the hope is EasyGo will continue rolling out AC charge points where they are needed!

cunnifferous

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117980535#Comment_117980535

Not to rain on your parade but buying an electric car without home charging is madness! I would put all your energy into trying to sort that because relying on the public charging network for regular charging is not going to be enjoyable

innrain

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117980535#Comment_117980535

If it helps you're not alone. I do this since April 2019. I appreciate how easy life is to have your own charger but I manage. Quite well considering we gave up having a petrol back up and got a second EV. I used to charge at ecars 50kW quite often. If I check plugshare checkins you'd think I'm the sole user of some chargers. Don't see the point to overstay as you are going back in few days anyway. Since May I haven't used their rapid chargers. Last attempt was the botched test of J14 hub.

Trying to say something positive about ecars... high resistance

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117980535#Comment_117980535

Do you mind sharing which part of the country you're in? Given you seem to have a choice of chargers that seems to indicate Dublin or another city, as many towns have 2 AC chargers at most

There's definitely no appetite for AC chargers from ESB at the moment. There seems to be some shenanigans going on between councils and ESB regarding charging as well

I remember an article some months ago about how Dublin city council wanted to install chargers, contracted it out to ESB who had installed some AC units but hadn't commissioned them for several months

So it seems to be a massive game of pass the buck for public AC charging. Best progress seems to be on private chargers like EasyGo installing chargers at Lidls

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117980740#Comment_117980740

I guess ESB have had fewer major IT outages than Facebook in 2021. That's... positive, I guess?

wassie

I found eCars was madness over the summer months as the country re-opened up travelling between the major towns, but settled down last month. 30,000kms of EV experience since December has taught me to always be adaptable on the eCars network and have plan B (and occasionally a plan C).

Ive been caught myself a few times by the 45mins leaving me short of a full charge, but I've used it much more in my favour to be able to plan whilst on the go. Knowing what time an occupied charger approaches the 45 mins allows me to take a punt to roll up and wait a few minutes before getting hooked up.

AndyBoBandy

The problem with the 45 minute limit is that if you knew there was another charger 90 minutes further up the road, and you were sure you’d get on it and not need to queue, you’d happily take the 45 minutes and toddle on up the road (ala Tesla when multiple SuC’s are along the route).

the reality is you are plugged into an eCars unit and there’s no guarantee and little confidence that the next charger will indeed be available, so you feel you have to take what you’ll need there and then….

driving down to Cork, are you stopping into Ballacolla and getting enough charge over 55 minutes to get you all the way to Kinsale? Or just enough (35 minutes) to get you to Cashel for the next charge?

in the Tesla, I’ll happily plan to arrive at a SuC at less than 10%…. But would you take that chance solely relying on eCars?

Black_Knight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117980826#Comment_117980826

I could probably pull those stats out. See the usage trend over time

Black_Knight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117981951#Comment_117981951

Usage certainly went up, but it's not gone back down, just tapered off.

10-10-20

There's an install of 6 or 7 street-lamp type chargers going on in Sandyford Business Park right now. All are bright-green with what looks to be a single (?) type-2 socket at about 3-foot high. I didn't see ESB branding on the vans, so I presume that's DLR-CoCo installing them through a contractor?

Anybody have any details on what the spec is?

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117983183#Comment_117983183

I believe they're 7kW units, I know the councils were looking at them a while back

They're a good idea but not exactly a universal solution, looking around my estate a lot of the light posts aren't in great locations to park

Still, if it can enable charging in a few housing estates then all the better

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117983213#Comment_117983213

It looked to me like the posts were being relocated to the verge of the grass.

There may have been two charging sockets per post, couldn't tell as I drove past at a crawl.