Random EV thoughts.....

Must be all the 5g in the air, stopping her from watching GB news as well as giving everyone covid 🤣

Ireland is probably too small for fastned to consider. They tend to go big. ESB also already have a sort of network with relatively low prices, hard to compete with. It would be relatively easy to find out grid connection costs and population density and traffic volumes, and factor in existing chargers. Main issue would be total cost for install.

In NI grid costs are far higher, which turned off petrol stations and Ionity, there is talk of charging this or subsidising the costs of new high power connections. I forsee chargers located where power lines cross motorways, with a cafe coming along eventually. Big sites are the future, not ones and twos. Grid connection costs are a big part of the cost, but you would also need a motorway exit nearby.

"August was a special month for the European market, as the plug-in sales for the very first time outsold diesel cars!

In August, EVs and plug-in hybrids outsold their diesel counterparts. This time last year, the volume of EVs was 158,300 units less than diesel car registrations, however last month we saw these EVs outsell diesel vehicles by 10,100 units."

Some definitely do.

We have work colleagues who make a big fuss about getting a spot on the work charger to charge their PHEVs.

I know it's bad, but am I the only one who was having a bit of a laugh at the fuel queues in the UK and thinking of all the ICE drivers who wouldn't get an EV because they have to queue for a charger?

True but I think it's more likely we'll see dramatic jumps in the cost of electricity, more than what we've been getting to date

Since we don't have a price cap, suppliers can raise prices as much as they want, and there isn't as much competition so unlikely we'll see the rake of energy companies closing down like the UK

Roll on the Celtic interconnector, get some energy from the continent when the UK decides to cut us off for being a bunch of insolent Paddy's

Nah, pretty sure the insurance companies were complaining about that a few years ago

Also, does the HSE count as a company? 😂

At this point a simple ad campaign telling people to avoid using devices heavy on electricity is low hanging fruit. Yes you need the over for dinner time but the washing or drying can usually be done at a different time.

That's the idea of peak tariffs but unfortunately they tend to increase fuel poverty as well

There's plenty of options for mitigating energy usage during this time but they all cost money which you won't have as much of if you're paying for more energy

It'd be nice to see a balanced approach, for example a scheme to deep retrofit all social housing and people on the fuel allowance so that the impact is minimised

It could be time limited as well, for example the grant expires in 2025 or something to get people to hurry up and get their houses upgraded

I am wondering if there is anyone in here that might have any insight .. if you are members of the Irish EV Owners Assoc on Facebook you may have seen my post yesterday.

Short story is that on my first venture outside of charging range of my home charger yesterday I discovered that my new Leaf 40 will not charge at any public charge point.

I have both an EasyGo and ECars account with money in them - and confirmed that there isn't an issue with the account.

I seems that my car will not establish a connection with the charge points ... the Fast charge point at Four Rivers Retail part attempted to connect about 15 times and then disconnected after 10 seconds with an error saying the session was stopped by the vehicle. The AC plug on the same box gave the same error. Another Leaf driver pulled in beside me and he had no issue.

I then tried the two fast chargers at the Circle K on the M9 at Kilcullen - the older charge point gave the same error and the newer type charging station didn't even indicate that it was plugged in to a car.

I then managed to get to the new EasyGo fast charger at the Starbucks in Naas .. again it initiated the process and then gave an ERR 5 code on the charge point - Which I think means that it failed to establish a connection with the car.

There is a small 7kw EasyGo charge point beside that and I was able to use my own cable and EAsyGo fob to get enough juice over a couple of hours to limp back home.

Last night I plugged in to my home wall box - no issue and tried my Father in law's wall box - no issue.

I have booked the car in to the Nissan dealer for late next week - I just can't get there any sooner ....

So ... if anyone has come across this before I love any advice !!

Nissan can check the diagnostics on the car but might not be able to help you much if it is only an issue with charging on ESB and EasyGo points on both AC and DC. It seems to be that it is a problem with your ecars ESB account or card rather than the car since you can charge fine on AC at home. Being able to charge DC at a Nissan dealer will confirm it is an ESB issue. Just ring them, and try a different card plus the app as previous poster suggested. You could also try initiating a charge on someone elses car at the charging point to see if it works. Also make sure to press the scheduler bypass button for AC charging just in case (bottom right of dash area near your right knee).

True, but we need to do something about all the old houses around Ireland that are poorly insulated

I agree for a lot of old council houses a demolition and rebuild would make more logical sense. Deep retrofit is probably better suited to individual homes

The problem is the current (or past) governments doesn't seem interested in this and would prefer to sell the land to a private developer and then buy some of the houses back at an extortionate price

I'd much rather see the council's developing land themselves and selling some houses to cover the cost of building while using others for social housing. I think there was a report a couple of years back saying this makes more sense in Dublin and a few other cities than the current strategy

There's also the fact that a lot of older council houses were bought by the occupier. They might not be interested in selling their home anytime soon

Found a very interesting video on V2G technology

Possibly something we're going to see more of shortly

There seems to be 2 types of V2G being talked about

One seem to be selling power to the grid at peak demand times, a lot like a FIT for solar

Other one here seems to be more focused on grid balancing. Customers are paid a fixed amount to be plugged in at certain times and the charging equipment will detect grid imbalances and either charge or discharge the car accordingly

In general people seem more comfortable with the first type, especially if you're getting a decent feed in rate for power. Something like 40c/kWh would be great. You could sell 10kWh to the grid when you get home and that would pay for a full charge that night