ESB eCars

oscarBravo

I watched an interesting interview with VW, they were surprised that people are charging the cars with 150km of range left, and so not benefitting from capabilities of the platform. They're are planning on working on the battery chemistry to improve the ability to sustain a higher charge speed for longer. They were expecting people to charge at between 20km and 50km of available range.

There's a bit of ivory tower dwelling there, I think. When fast charging stations are as commonplace as petrol stations, I'll switch to charging with 20-50km of remaining range.

My routine for a Dublin round trip now involves leaving Westport with a full charge, reaching Ballinalack with ~50% remaining, top up to 90%, head to the city, head home, recharge en route to 90% and then charge back up when I'm home again. If there was a 150kW charger every few kilometres I'd do it differently.

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119666486#Comment_119666486

Their data showed it's what people did with lower range cars so they expected people to do the same with longer range vehicles, instead people blindly seem to think 20% is the rule of thumb whether they have a 16kWh battery or a 80kWh one.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119666078#Comment_119666078

Ha, well it didn't last, there was an ID.4 and I think a Model 3 there 30 mins later

Middle spot was free though, so a Leaf could have charged

kanuseeme

My routine for a Dublin round trip is just getting in and drive, if I am stopped and see a charger I plug in, if not I just use petrol, no need to worry about leafs or anything else.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119666486#Comment_119666486

Yeah I gotta agree with that sentiment, even if there are chargers at regular intervals the quality of sites varies

If you're aiming for sites with 4 chargers for example that cuts out about 99% of the available charging sites in Ireland, so your choices become more limited

UID0

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119666497#Comment_119666497

Part of the problem is their navigation. The car refuses to route to a destination where you'll have less than 20% remaining when you arrive. It adds a charging stop in automatically.

They also make a big deal of keeping the car between 20% and 80% charge. The dash lights up like a christmas tree when you hit 20%. It's not surprising that customers (most of whom are new to EVs) think they need to charge before they hit 20%, or the car might stop in the middle of the road on them.

liamog

Yeah def think that's part of the problem, 20% battery in todays EV's isn't what it was 5 years ago

mfceiling

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119666628#Comment_119666628

Wife was driving my car last week. Complete range anxiety for no reason. Battery went to 32% and she went into panic mode. I switched it to Kms to ease her mind.

I threw it on the granny plug overnight and dialled down the amps (not comfortable leaving it on 10 - plug gets hot). Next morning it was in the low 50's.

First question "is there enough battery to go from terenure to sandyford then to ranelagh and then back to terenure"? Told her she probably had close enough battery to drive to Limerick. Newbies gonna newb!!

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119666502#Comment_119666502

That's an issue, but if every 'spot' had 2 plugs that wouldn't be an issue... Ballysimon in Limerick is a good example of how to do half a hub, having a charger that's not being used while a car waits for a charge is not good practice

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119666656#Comment_119666656

Depends on what car you're driving, if it took a full night to get a 20% charge you either have a dodgy cable or a huge battery, one is a problem, the other isn't

MarkN

Anyone else having trouble adding a new card to the payment section on the app?

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119666656#Comment_119666656

I was thinking recently about how my wife's attitude towards her Leaf has changed over the past year

When she got it, I had to constantly remind her to plug in before work and she'd say something like "I don't have to remember, that's your job".

Then one day she forgot and had something like 67% and was freaking out

I told her she definitely has enough to get to work and probably enough to get home and could probably use the charger in work. She got home fine with around 30% remaining

Now she's a lot more confident about how much range she has. I asked her last week if she needed to plug in for work the next day and she was "nah, I've got like 80%, I'll be grand"

Still haven't convinced her to learn how to use the public chargers though 🤔

eagerv

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119667302#Comment_119667302

That's unfortunate, I was lucky having a wife who went EV before me. I don't think she knew the meaning of the phrase "Range anxiety" as she traveled the length of breadth of the country with 28kWh. (Slight exaggeration. 🙂)

She left the anxiety to me at home..😁

mfceiling

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119666927#Comment_119666927

It's the granny cable out the back. Didn't start charging until around 10 and knocked it off at 7.30. Wasn't going to bother charging it but it was more to put her at ease. It's a M3P so the battery is probably somewhere in the low 70kw's.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119666902#Comment_119666902

Personally I think Tuam is the peak of ESB hubs. 2 chargers, 4 spaces, each side of the charger has a CCS and Chademo plug and can supply 100kW when both sides are in use

If they'd copy that template for every other hub, and then just make it bigger for bigger sites then there'd be no issues

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119667511#Comment_119667511

So you did 9.5 hours charging and got 14kWh? That's about ~1.5kW or 6.5A at 220V. You should safely be able to do double that on a properly installed 3-pin socket

liamog

Mod Note: Can we move on from the granny chargers, I don't think ESB e-Cars are operating them

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119667539#Comment_119667539

That should be the minimum layout for any of small mini hubs. If every solo charger DC was instead this we'd have a much more reliable charging experience. The bigger hubs it makes sense to go with the separate charging equipment vs charge point like the Mayfield layout.

wassie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119666656#Comment_119666656

Wife was driving my car last week. Complete range anxiety for no reason. Battery went to 32% and she went into panic mode.

You should be thankful your wife actually looks at the battery meter.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119667539#Comment_119667539

4 cars charging at once should never be called a "hub" but aside from that I agree

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119670143#Comment_119670143

I wasn't expecting us to go so quickly back to the eCars can call their network whatever they like post ...

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119670542#Comment_119670542

Beats the 3-pin charger and Chademo/CCS debates

liamog

It really feels like eCars have paused their high power rollouts whilst they concentrate on reforming the NI network. I'm disappointed that we haven't hear of any works going towards a 2nd Mayfield style site.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119670659#Comment_119670659

Tbh I'm not really getting the vine that they're focusing all of their efforts into that. Feels like a lot of the wind has gone out of Ecars sails regarding HPC installations

If I were to guess, I would say that all the service stations are saying no to more Ecars hubs because they want to build their own

Ecars are probably going to be relegated to providing chargers in less profitable locations from here on

This isn't necessarily a bad result, I've always felt that the charging subsidiaries should essentially be contracts to establish chargers in various locations and that the less profitable locations should receive more financial assistance.

Ecars and other providers should then bid on those contracts and ensure that there are no gaps in the network

Also I think I swung the thread back to "it's all the government's fault", we're making record progress on the Ecars complaint cycle 😂

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119670143#Comment_119670143

Hey it's Ecars, you gotta manage your expectations 😜

liamog

If I were to guess, I would say that all the service stations are saying no to more Ecars hubs because they want to build their own

I think their is an element of truth to this, the Plaza Group (Supermacs) seem to be the only ones encouraging eCars to engage with them. I'm aware of Applegreen, Maxol, and CircleK all working on their own charging sites in the Dublin area. eCars should have leveraged their relationship with Tesco to go hard on 50kW chargers at supermarkets as district charging locations.

ELM327

Thats a great idea. Most Tesco sites have large parking areas that are rarely full

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119670928#Comment_119670928

Ecars have a loose agreement with Tesco, Easygo with Lidl. Time for Aldi and Dunnes to step up

AndyBoBandy

I think it's fairly obvious too why the forecourt retailers want away from eCars, as they see there's serious money to be made from EV charging (I'll hazard a guess their margin will be much higher on Electricity as opposed to fossil juice), and it's money they can earn independent of an unnecessary sub par EV charging partner in eCars.

They probably see on a daily basis how wrong eCars have gotten things in relation to what types of site layouts are needed.. Look at Applegreen Ballymount... blows Mayfield out of the water, so if that's how serious they're taking it, the game is up for eCars.... Look at the CircleK in Clonshaugh, 4 units (so I'm guessing 8 charging spaces)..

I don't think we'll get another Mayfield from eCars as they are simply incapable of it, and they see everyone around them now doing it better, faster & probably cheaper..

I bet within 18-24 months, they'll be in replacing all those Tesco AC units with DC units... and that's fine, that should be their level. Them & EasyGo doing all the small stuff in towns & cities while the big boys look after the intercity routes...

zg3409

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119670928#Comment_119670928

Supermacs kinnegad has 2 X 50kW easygo chargers. Supermacs themselves were paying the cost of electricity for many months and charging was free of charge. Not now free but I could see them rolling their own or partnering with non esb suppliers.

In NI I see nothing really happening, but promises of some sites before end of year. To defend them they might be waiting on hardware as in chargers with long delays due to supply chain and massive demand from other countries. They may also be having difficulty getting agreement on sites. NI grid connection fees are very high too. In reality I suspect they are hoping to get more NI free funding and so I think they are on the go slow.

I suggested to easygo to change Lidl to 50kW a number of years ago and they said it was up to Lidl. Now 4+ Lidl stores have 50kW chargers, mostly brand new builds.

Tesco has traditionally had a lot of esb chargers including 50kW units. They have a lot of chargers in uk. From Tesco's point of view they should roll out sites, but it's not their prime business. They might also be blocking esb but I doubt it.

One big concern I would have if it was my money is that bigger battery EVs with home charging will rarely need public charging in ROI & NI and then probably only on motorway city to city routes, so long term the amount of public charging demand particularly as Ireland is so small, may be 95% those with no home charger, and that demand may be very local and cost conscious with possibly low margin.

That said we need far, far, far more chargers now and into the future.