Random EV thoughts.....

I wonder how long it'll be before "reports" surface of towns being devastated by exploding hydrogen cars

Happens almost as much as those EVs that explode when they're charging or driven in the rain

The reports are better when its hydrogen, Hindenburg, the space shuttle, a hydrogen refueling station etc. more bang for the buck.

Most of the Lidl chargers clearly state one hour maximum. They are free and they are for their customers. It's taking the Mick to charge there and not shop or to exceed that time, unless maybe you stay with the car and stop charging if someone else comes over.

I agree it's pointless to hook up for 30 minutes if your car can only charge at 7 or 11kW. You've just saved yourself a max €1, meh.

Slow chargers are only of any value if you can plug in for a prolonged period. If suppliers don't allow that, it's surely only green washing.

That's an oddly specific car to pick, did you have bit of an altercation with one?

Oh yeah, didn't one catch fire in a multistorey car park in Denmark? And the fire was originally blamed on EVs of course

EDIT: it was actually in Norway, but it was a Zafira

Wow, I'm almost surprised that multistorey car parks don't just turn them away at the gate

There was a Zafira going up in flames nearly every month in this country alone a good few years ago, even more than BMW diesels with the EGR issue.

+1

Even if you plugged it in every single week for your weekly shop (and there is likely going to be some waiting around for that too as these free charge points are at least sometimes occupied), then you will have saved about €30-€50 per year if your car can only charge at 7 or 11kW. That's a lot of work for very little saving.

Back in the day when I could 50kW DC fast charge for free at my local fast charger, where I passed several times a day and I could see from the main road if it was occupied or not, I did if I was near empty. Back in the day when my car could 23kW AC slow charge at my local Lidl and those charge points were rarely taken, I did and used to stay on for another wee while after my shopping doing a bit of work reading emails etc. Both of these would (nearly) fill my car up to full, saving having to plug in at home that night, so effectively costing me very little / no extra time. Now, I don't.

Not disagreeing with your last point but that doesn't take away from the fact that many EV drivers really value free charging and will waste valuable time soaking up as many free electrons as they can.

I guess the point of this discussion is that there should be charging opportunities pretty much everywhere you park where you tend to spend time anyway. Everybody's needs differ (different journey lengths and whether the particular user have usual overnight charging availability for example). And free charging is bad in general as that leads to people "saving money" where they don't in fact need to charge in that particular time or place.

So, in my opinion, every cinema, shopping centre, park, hotel and tourist attraction in the county should have banks of pay as you go AC available. And, again, in general every public car park above certain size in the country should have the same with an increasing number of spots as the EVs become more common. The supermarket carparks should all have DC chargers like what LIDL are doing now. And every filling station in Ireland that have say 3 pumps or more should have a DC charger with capacity for at least 2 concurrent users. The towns along tourist routes like WAW should have two or more DC chargers as a matter of course.

The lack of chargers at WAW is chronic in general and places like the cliffs would really help. I agree that Kildare Village is actually really good and free access is fine for time being as there are so many chargers. Might be a good idea to tie the usage for something like spend some money there in the medium term as any free charging near a town will easily attract locals that just park there but don't bring any custom. And as the place attracts people from all over the country it would be great to prioritise people that genuinely need to charge there as opposed to people who want to just freeload, and a small charge to use them priced at 30 c/kWh or similar would stop that.

Well one of the advantages of EV charging is that assuming most of the grid infrastructure is there or nearby (it should be) the installation should be pretty quick, as in a few months rather than a year or so

So on the assumption that Circle K is fairly ready to go, I think we could see the hub open in 2022

Love them myself but the last time I looked they were looking for silly money. This really should be a €9999 max car. And that is including a big nostalgia premium.