ESB eCars

3kW and were the really old style eCars charger type when I was last there in April. The one which I was connected to kept dropping the connection after 20 seconds. Really antiquated architecture.

Ah don't curse us with Ecars, I'm hoping a better provider will take over, or Tesla just open up the sites to all cars

Those TII sites aren't ageing well that's for sure, they're looking very worn out even compared to a few years ago. Probably the best one I've seen in a while is Gorey and that's probably because it's fairly new

It's a shame because they're nice enough facilities in principle, and having the play areas for the younger kids is brilliant

Fun trip to Letterkenny today stopping twice at Monaghan.

Why do they put the chargers up against a wall.

from Anna's answer I pick population volumes for this setup ;) or on a second thought best fit charger ... no site safety

That's appalling 😟

Also as the last charger before you pass through the unmitigated black hole of the north -that could be the most important charging site in the whole country! You'd be crazy to drive past that charger going anywhere north or north west as you never know when your next opportunity will come!

Sure they have 500 hubs now. All the AC chargers can charge 2 cars at a time and thats a hub.

Best Regards

Anna

To be fair, it would take 3-4 hours for a Merc PHEV to charge, they can only take 3kW

Bit of a waste, the price for AC charging at the 50kW units is the same as DC charging. Cheaper to go to an AC charger

The theory behind the cables is that the resistance goes up when they get longer, so the cable need to get thicker to match

Thicker cables = More money, and ECars like to do things on the cheap it seems

Charger placement is also a problem, often the DC cables are only really useable from one side of the charger, otherwise you get some fun parking like what you encountered

Charger placement is a big sticking area with ESB. I stopped for a very quick top up in Mayfield yesterday. I could only use one charger out of them all because all the others were in use (on one side) and the cable on the opposite side wouldn't have reached my charge port.

Basically if your port is on the same side as the car already parked at the closest cable point you are unlikely to be able to use the other space.

Is that the left as you look at the car from the front or from behind?

The correct location for what exactly?

It might be a better solution but people have to work in the real world. If you're a CPO and have money burning a hole in your pocket, do you roll out your network in a way that suits all cars or do you wait for all the manufacturers to bend to your will? And then you'll have to ignore all the existing EVs out there with sockets in unsuitable places.

The advantages of this layout are so numerous that it's exactly how almost every petrol station in the world is laid out. There aren't many Circle K stations being build with pumps on the grass forcing people to reverse in (which a lot of people are sadly unable to do) or park diagonally.

Mobile phones are generally designed and then sold for about 3 years. Cars models are typically sold for a much longer timeframe. Moving the charge port would be a major change to any model so manufacturers would look for a long lead time to enforcement. And by the time that happens, there will be tens of thousands of charge points installed across Europe, hopefully not all as badly designed as eCars ones.

I used an Ionity station at Perth a week or so ago with this layout, obviously with no chademo cables. Whilst the cables were a decent length, I didnt like it. I had to walk out around the charger to get to the screen to unplug - and nearly got run over by an arriving very quiet Mustang Mach-e whose space I had to walk through.

The single charger located at the back of slightly widened parking space is perfect I think, like Ionity City West & Gorey.

Fuel pump layouts are over generous in width as there is a quick turnover of cars. The higher dwell time makes parking bays more suitable for EV charging.

I had some recent experience of both at Ionity sites

There's pros and cons to both layouts. The chargers at the side makes it much easier to plug in, but you do have to zigzag around chargers at times

The bay type layout is easier to walk around but not always well placed for the charging port, you can end up stretching the cable to its limit

IMO for HPCs they should be laid out like petrol pumps. Kind of creates a mental signal for people that the spots are for charging and not for parking while you're getting lunch

It might not be best for density but realistically how many chargers are going to be at a site? Maybe a dozen, so not exactly wasting space

Slower chargers like 50kW then go for max density, bay parking with a single charger per space. If you want to serve two spaces then put 2 CCS and 1 Chademo on each unit and make sure the cables are long enough