ESB eCars

You could argue that the cables on ecars units are also too short, but that’s another conversation.

They (ecars) definitely need to think about where you wait on site for a unit to free up, but that’s wishful thinking given the slow rollout so far. This will only get worse and annoy everyone at the site , not just EV owners , so maybe management might take a bit of notice.

Nevermind the fact that all the units are exposed to the heavy rain that fell earlier, while you can pump Dino fuel under cover.

I’ve seen how queues are formed in the UK and France / Holland, but it all seems down to how fair the drivers are too each other and nothing else. I saw the video of the Tesla Suc in Vegas at the weekend where a Tesla driver did the same thing to another Tesla driver and took the spot, so it can happen anywhere.

I do yes. The problem I have is that the Tesla chargers are located in very good areas, therefore if they open up they will be incredibly busy. I was charging at castlebellingham on Saturday lunchtime. 3 of the stalls were taken while I was there. The one ESB charger had a leaf and an etron there with another leaf and an ID4 waiting. EV's are becoming very common on the roads and chargers on motorway routes are busy. Selfishly from my point of view I hope they don't open and I presume I'm not alone on here!!

It's an easy out for ECars if another company picks up the slack for them.

True enough. If he does open up I'll probably go for the Ioniq 5. I love the look of it. Old school "lancia HF integrale" from it.

Again I think it's a knowledge thing, Mayfield got a lot of press when it opened, and ESB are always banging on about their "hubs" so people tend to go there

Whereas many new EV drivers probably don't know Ionity exists

I stopped at Kill "North" yesterday evening and there was just one another car trying to start charging. Left after 5 mins and they were still struggling. Tried to help but it was failing to initiate. On Kill "South" there was nobody when passed by. Tesla charges around 35-38 c/kWh so arguably the same price but you're right some people know little else than ESB, while others assume they are clever. (see the driver who connected the AC cable into SuC).

ecars will not go under cause it is funded by us and they don't answer to anybody. Sounds such a commie thing to say but unfortunately it is true.

Was it actually offline or was it showing offline in the app? Didn't Black Knight say recently that the app is showing incorrect information for loads of charge points? Maybe I picked him up wrong though.

Did they try another unit? One bonus of Ionity (and Tesla) is there's almost always another unit to try (City North being the annoying exception)

With ESB, a broken is almost always a major headache

I think you're right that ESB won't go under, and as I've said I think it'd be a great idea for government, councils and the ESB to work together to provide chargers in areas that otherwise would be ignored.

But the idea that they're Ireland's biggest charging network and only have a single hub is just laughable

Didn't someone spot recently that the stickers are reversed on a bunch of Ionity chargers? So if you scan the QR code for charger 1 it activates charger 2 and so forth. I think @Black_Knight got caught with that recently?

That was me - Ionity City North and Ionity Athlone both have the QR code stickers on the wrong stalls. (somewhat more worrying in City North as there are only two stalls for them to put the sticker on)

The thing is with the whole CCS v CHAdeMO argument is despite the ratio of CCS to CHAdeMO increasing exponentially, and everyone knowing it(?), I actually like the way they've set up the new Tuam site, with a CCS & CHAdeMO plug for each of the 4 spaces. Doesn't matter what cars are there, if there's a spot available you get a CCS/CHAdeMO charge, end of. The same with spaces 7 & 8 in Mayfield. 4 plugs on a unit that covers 2 spaces is what they should be aiming at, so a space is never left idle (like Mayfield if 2 CCS cars plugged in & a 3rd CCS car arrives).

All the existing 150kW + 50kW sites where there's ample space (Kilcullen, Park Ri, Galway Plaza etc..) should be upgraded to 4 space sites with the 2x 4 plug chargers, even if they have to load balance a 200kW grid connection..

Any sign of the next upgrade/new site coming? Anywhere? hello.... Anna?

Probably a lot, but lets face it, we all just have to accept that eCars are still full on with CHAdeMO deployment.... Tuam for instance would be perfectly acceptable for just 1 of the units to have the CHAdeMO plugs on it, and the other unit be CCS only, but we know eCars just aren't going to do it like that, so their solution of 8 plugs for 4 spaces is the best we can probably expect from them (however more expensive it ends up costing).

It's a backwards solution to the problem they've created all by themselves by continuing to support new CHAdeMO installations in equal measure to new CCS installations (with the exception or 1 site that's almost 11 months old now).

I think there's a Lexus BEV that also uses CHAdeMO, but don't think theres many if any at all in Ireland.

Tesla Model S & X can also use CHAdeMO with a special adaptor.

Don't forget the Outlander drivers that go out of their way to use a CHAdeMO plug :)

Just jokes relax, have seen it down in Gorey with the Ionity busy at the same time.