Random EV thoughts.....

irishgrover

MJohnston wrote: »

This is not the problem. People should not have to know how to use chargers beyond "scan your card and plug in the right cable" and it's a massive failure of infrastructural design that we aren't at that stage yet.

For example, it's ridiculous that 3-head chargers contain no physical indicators as to whether you can or can't use a given plug. Obviously if you scan your card first, you'll see the display show that certain plugs may be unavailable. But that's not how most people will use a charging cable — they'll tend to plug in, then scan their card. Which is where the CCS-Chademo interruption problem arises.

Throw a red/green LED above each cable type, and people would know at a glance not to try to use that one. One of many simple bits of user interaction design that put together would negate the need for new EV owners to memorise a catalog of charging etiquette.

I agree with regards to the UI/UX on the units. However not knowing if your car uses Chadamo V CCS and not knowing that your car can fast charge really requires a bit of RTFM

slave1

irishgrover wrote: »

was in Portlaoise on Saturday.....and I plugged into the 150..

Then a lady in an ioniq appeared and again I told her I'd be 5 minutes and she proceeded to tell me no prolem, she could use the other cable (Charamo). I explained she could not..

.

Are the eCars 150 units not dual supply i.e. she could have used the CHAdeMO whilst you were using the CCS????

irishgrover

slave1 wrote: »

Are the eCars 150 units not dual supply i.e. she could have used the CHAdeMO whilst you were using the CCS????

No, I was in a soul, she was in an Ioniq - both CCS

EDIT: Unless you mean the 50kW unit with the leaf - but I discounted that becuase the soul driver was about to leave the 150kW unit, which I would have prefered anyways (if it had have actually been a 150kW, which it transpired it was not :-) )

slave1

Oh, missed that piece, my bad, thank fek for early Gen Tesla's, can use either CCS or CHAdeMO

MJohnston

irishgrover wrote: »

I agree with regards to the UI/UX on the units. However not knowing if your car uses Chadamo V CCS and not knowing that your car can fast charge really requires a bit of RTFM

Well Chademo vs CCS is a failure of the industry really, but thankfully something we won't have to endure for much longer.

That will bring us down to "what speed is this charger?" and ultimately eCars are absolutely failing at explaining that clearly and simply to most people who aren't EV nerds.

slave1

MJohnston wrote: »

.... but thankfully something we won't have to endure for much longer.

.

CHAdeMO will remain for at least a decade, lots of Leafs on our roads....not to mention Outlanders

MJohnston

slave1 wrote: »

CHAdeMO will remain for at least a decade, lots of Leafs on our roads....not to mention Outlanders

If we're building new charging infrastructure for outdated PHEVs, then we're truly looking into the abyss.

slave1

We are

ELM327

Are we?
Recent install from ecars (ie J14) shows a lot more CCS than chademo and theres even less fast AC. I think we're moving in the right direction

80% of charging points (DC) should be CCS now as thats really the percentage of new cars sold.

MJohnston

slave1 wrote: »

We are

From the look of recent hubs where Chademo is being sidelined, I would tend to disagree. It's a legacy connector, and I think eCars are designing in a way that treats it as such. Which will minimise the amount of confusion it causes.

Beyond that, I guess when I said "something we won't have to endure much longer" I'm talking about net-new EV owners, which will be largely CCS. The people who already have Leafs are probably more aware of their incompatibilities than the millions of new EV owners who are coming in the next few years, who won't have to worry about such things.

slave1

My point being we are doing fresh installs of CHAdeMO chargers.
In a twisted view of things CHAdeMO EVs can actually have easier access to chargers given most/new EV's are CCS as the minute e.g. triple head

liamog

Do you mean the locations where they install a 44kW DC charger as a replacement for a 2x22kW AC?

If so it makes sense to install a CCS+CHAdeMO charger as there would be no benefit to installing a dual CCS, and the extra cost of the CHAdeMO connector is minimal.
I do think they should be installing dual CCS on the 150kW HPC units when they are deployed alongside a 50kW CCS+CHAdeMO+FastAC unit.

ELM327

slave1 wrote: »

My point being we are doing fresh installs of CHAdeMO chargers.
In a twisted view of things CHAdeMO EVs can actually have easier access to chargers given most/new EV's are CCS as the minute e.g. triple head

Its like a supercharger network for leafs!

finbarrk

I was in Killarney at the weekend. The town was busy. I checked the only public charging station that showed up on the plugshare app and both spaces were in use on Saturday evening. I don't have an EV, but was thinking of getting one. After seeing the charging place I mightn't bother.

MJohnston

finbarrk wrote: »

I was in Killarney at the weekend. The town was busy. I checked the only public charging station that showed up on the plugshare app and both spaces were in use on Saturday evening. I don't have an EV, but was thinking of getting one. After seeing the charging place I mightn't bother.

Thanks for the info!

slave1

finbarrk wrote: »

I was in Killarney at the weekend. The town was busy. I checked the only public charging station that showed up on the plugshare app and both spaces were in use on Saturday evening. I don't have an EV, but was thinking of getting one. After seeing the charging place I mightn't bother.

Have a good read of various threads here, but in general...

• Public charging is poor but better than it was 12months ago, should be better in 12 months time and so on and so on
• EV's now have greater range so public charging is required less
• Charge speeds are higher so charging time is less
• Second hand market hugely improved from 12months ago as early adopters move to newer EVs
• Grants are generous at the moment
• EV kick ass in terms of performance and teck stuff

ELM327

You just charge at home though?
Dont buy an EV if you dont have home charging

ELM327

slave1 wrote: »

Have a good read of various threads here, but in general...

• Public charging is poor but better than it was 12months ago, should be better in 12 months time and so on and so on
• EV's now have greater range so public charging is required less
• Charge speeds are higher so charging time is less
• Second hand market hugely improved from 12months ago as early adopters move to newer EVs
• Grants are generous at the moment
• EV kick ass in terms of performance and teck stuff

Grants are only there for the cheap EVs though

AndyBoBandy

finbarrk wrote: »

I was in Killarney at the weekend. The town was busy. I checked the only public charging station that showed up on the plugshare app and both spaces were in use on Saturday evening. I don't have an EV, but was thinking of getting one. After seeing the charging place I mightn't bother.

How far do you live from Killarney? Chances are you live within range of the place so wouldn't need to use those public chargers. And if you live further, there's a good chance you'd have passed more than a few fast chargers on the route, so a quick 10-15 minute stop on the way there or home would have sufficed....

Public charging is expensive (yet still a lot cheaper than ICE costs), so the idea is to do as little public charging as possible, but when you do have to public charge, you don't mind paying the premium (above your own home electricity) for the few times a year where you actually need to public charge...

McGiver

irishgrover wrote: »

1. First time I've had to Queue at a charger for a couple of years (most of my trips are Gal <>Dub which is very well served)
2. The 150 unit might be under supplying?
3. Way too many people on the road don't know how to use chargers.

This is what will happen from now on as the EV uptake increases and more so...

It shows few issues though:

• CCS unification in the EU market needed ASAP. Japanese-Chinese Chademo plug should be squeezed out of the EU market by the legislators, on the EU level. Similarly like we don't allow the sale of electronic devices with a Japanese AC plug. The small issue is - what to do with legacy cars in the EU with a Chademo plug (Nissan Leaf, Mistsubishi...).
• Along with CCS only EU wide, we also need credit card payment for all chargers and clear UX/UI on the chargers, both physically as well as on screen. The charging process must be very simple for every Joe and Mary to use. It's NOT now - millions of apps, fobs etc etc.

cannco253

MJohnston wrote: »

Well Chademo vs CCS is a failure of the industry really, but thankfully something we won't have to endure for much longer.

That will bring us down to "what speed is this charger?" and ultimately eCars are absolutely failing at explaining that clearly and simply to most people who aren't EV nerds.

eCars have a part in this, but owners must also know what their car can/can't do.
Lots of drivers I've met at chargers have no clue about the charging curve on their car, they arrive at eCars and complain they don't get 150kW/50kW or whatever it says on the tin, have no idea about how SoC effects the charge or even how much the car can take in. Whether this is poor communication from the dealer, lack of interest in reading the manual from the owner, or both it's not good for anyone.

Once the summer is over and more people have experienced longer trips in their cars and the public infrastructure limitations I'm sure this will improve.

slave1

ELM327 wrote: »

Grants are only there for the cheap EVs though

VRT grant remains for NI imports (some good cars have come up there recently, I nearly got one before an Irish Kona came up well priced) and home charge points.
I've never looked at the new EV grant as I don't buy new cars nor entertain any sort of loans/PCP etc

ELM327

McGiver wrote: »

This is what will happen from now on as the EV uptake increase and more so...

It shows few issues though:

• CCS unification in the EU market needed ASAP. Japanese-Chinese Chademo plug should be squeezed out of the EU market by the legislators, on the EU level. Similarly like we don't allow the sale of electronic devices with a Japanese AC plug. The small issue is - what to do with legacy cars in the EU with a Chademo plug (Nissan Leaf, Mistsubishi...).
• Along with CCS only EU wide, we also need credit card payment for all chargers and clear UX/UI on the chargers, both physically as well as on screen. The charging process must be very simple for every Joe and Mary to use. It's now - millions of apps, fobs etc etc.

The chademo is Japanese, the chinese have an (ironically) copied version called GB/T. Not supported outside of china and about as useful as type3c AC charging


Agree on the rest though, I think once someone invents a reasonable CCS plug to Chademo socket adapter we will see 100% phaseout of chademo like any other deprecated standard.

ELM327

slave1 wrote: »

VRT grant remains for NI imports (some good cars have come up there recently, I nearly got one before an Irish Kona came up well priced) and home charge points.
I've never looked at the new EV grant as I don't buy new cars nor entertain any sort of loans/PCP etc

Again, only on the cheap ones. Anything over 50k and you pay full VRT of 7%. No 5k grant anymore.

AndyBoBandy

McGiver wrote: »

The small issue is - what to do with legacy cars in the EU with a Chademo plug (Nissan Leaf, Mistsubishi...).

For a start legislate for all new ones to be CCS, and once that's done, you maintain the existing network of CHAdeMO units up to a point, say for another 10 years... but install no new ones. CCS only from that point onwards.

Then in a few (10) years when the usage of CHAdeMO drops off a cliff, you can remove/upgrade most of them to CCS...

slave1

cannco253 wrote: »

eCars have a part in this, but owners must also know what their car can/can't do.
Lots of drivers I've met at chargers have no clue about the charging curve on their car, they arrive at eCars and complain they don't get 150kW/50kW or whatever it says on the tin, have no idea about how SoC effects the charge or even how much the car can take in. Whether this is poor communication from the dealer, lack of interest in reading the manual from the owner, or both it's not good for anyone.

Once the summer is over and more people have experienced longer trips in their cars and the public infrastructure limitations I'm sure this will improve.

I'm 5 years into EV ownership and from the few travels I've made this past month or so there is serious more charger usage, perhaps that's just on my routes but there always seem to be a car queuing these days

ELM327

Thats the problem with buying a car that is not supported by either Tesla and or Ionity networks. Or traveling outside the coverage of the respective network, you're left with crappy ecars SPOF, which are predominantly slow (50kw) chargers

MJohnston

cannco253 wrote: »

eCars have a part in this, but owners must also know what their car can/can't do.

Maybe right now they should know what their car can do, but long-term there's no reason that anyone should have to know in future.

This isn't like petrol and diesel where there are fundamental mechanical problems with getting it wrong. Instead every problem you describe is something that can be dealt with via user experience refinement and software.

Nobody should have to understand SoC — they should just be able to see accurate "time to X%" estimates on their car or the charging point.

Nobody should have to understand kW units and what they mean — instead we should have smart charge point mapping systems in cars that tell you how quickly you can get to X% of charge from the charge points near you or along your route.

Nobody should have to know the rules of various charge point models to understand whether they can plug in yet — it should be clearer than day on the charge point hardware.

The technology to do all of these things is freely available, but so much about electric cars is still stuck in the ICE mindset, and we're still in the enthusiast-only period of adoption, so they haven't been done.

cannco253

slave1 wrote: »

I'm 5 years into EV ownership and from the few travels I've made this past month or so there is serious more charger usage, perhaps that's just on my routes but there always seem to be a car queuing these days

Yep I'm seeing that myself.

Our local Dunnes has a bank of 6 chargers and is full today and cars waiting to get in, first time I've seen it.

Summertime I guess

McGiver

slave1 wrote: »

Have a good read of various threads here, but in general...
Public charging is poor but better than it was 12months ago, should be better in 12 months time and so on and so on

No, it isn't - at ALL or by ANY measure.

EV numbers increased significantly.
The growth of the number of CCS connectors in the network (bar Ionity) since 2019 is very small. From roughly 85 CCS in January 2019 to 110 CCS today. That's completely inadequate. Most countries on the continent have had 100's of % growth of CCS connectors in the last 2.5 years.

CCS:EV ratio has descreased significantly. That is NOT an improvement, that's a worsening of the situation.

slave1 wrote: »

EV's now have greater range so public charging is required less

This is questionable. Even the longer range cars have to stop somewhere sometime eventually. Evident in my recent travels - Ionity and Circle K charger all full and qued, largely by longer range cars.

slave1 wrote: »

Charge speeds are higher so charging time is less

Applies only for Ionity. Battery sizes increased as well, but eCars charging speed didn't increase accordingly. We're still looking at 30+ minute stop at an FCP/UFCP.

slave1 wrote: »

[*]Second hand market hugely improved from 12months ago as early adopters move to newer EVs

OK, but that pushes the relatively lower range cars to the circulation - exacerbating all the issues...

slave1 wrote: »

Grants are generous at the moment

No, they aren't. They suck compared to Norway or even France. And instead of increasing subsidies the Gov has started decreasing them at a stage of only 1-2% adoption - totally wrong.