ESB eCars

Second time ever public charging, could not get over how heavy the charger cable is, it was an monster snake beast that you almost have to wrestle on to the car. Was very happy with the speed anyway as there was a 50kw down the road that wouldn't go over 36kw at all, despite pre conditioning and all.

You wouldn't even need a lock on the machine. A simple sensor like they have on petrol pumps would do the trick nicely

They should remove the AC while they’re at it……..

I was in Ballacolla yesterday and saw a few cars queuing up to use the ESB chargers… and there was a RAV4 Hybrid plugged into the AC, and while they weren’t doing anything wrong, it meant there were only 2 spaces available to use the 3 available DC connectors…..

I’d have been furious myself if I’d arrived to that situation needing a charge, but I just walked past that sh1tshow while my car was pulling 130kW from the Supercharger just a few meters away!!!

Removing the AC just screws over people that use this as an enroute charger and can take the full 22 kW from it.

Restrict the usage, either by configuration or pricing, would achieve a much better outcome for everyone.

No, no it isnt. 22kW is an SCP and these are for charging at your destination.

Enroute chargers (ie FCP or HCP) have a deadline of 45minutes after which a penalty applies. The deadline for this 22kW? 10 hours. It's not enroute.

You're making the same mistakes as Ecars did. In thinking that just because it 22kW that the rules for other 22kW's should apply.

Lets look at the facts.

It's a charger at a motorway service station.

There's nothing else around it that would qualify as a destination.

There just one AC outlet, on a charger where the two other plugs are for fast charging.

The previous version of the charger included AC purely to service the Zoe.

The manufacturers of the charger are marketing it as "maximum of charge with minimum time spent".

And lastly having people charge slowly and quickly at the same time is a recipe for conflict and inefficiency.

It's an enroute for Zoes, nothing else would make any sense at this location.

A separate AC pedestal should indeed be added completely separate and away from the DC chargers…. Then if someone wants to plug in their PHEV, or wants to spend 2 hours in Supermacs or is in an early gen Zoe (as all new ones since the last year or 2 are CCS) they can knock themselves out on the AC22, leaving the DC chargers for ‘fast’ charging only.

If you're on a 12 month contract with an electric utility provider, generally, can you adjust the plan to make the nighly charge bill lesser or would that invalidate the contract?

In general I agree but I think the main obstacle would be providing a grid connection big enough for the complete set of chargers

For example if you augmented Ecars fake hubs with an additional 2x22kW pillar, you'd need to increase the grid connection by another 44kW, bringing it to 244kW (150+50+44)

I imagine this would increase the cost for a minimal gain. The AC chargers make less money than the DC ones, so why bother with the AC pillars at all?

Ecars have already said they don't want to install any more AC chargers since there's no money in it

Some of the big Gridserve sites have AC chargers as well but considering they have megawatt sized grid connections, a couple of AC chargers is a drop in the ocean

The only way to make money on AC seems to be to deploy it at scale in a single location, like a multistorey carpark

For example the AC chargers in Pavilions Swords always seem to have 3-4 cars charging there. 2 hours free parking is enough time to get a decent enough charge, especially if you can take 11kW or more. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the only profitable AC site

Meanwhile the chargers in Stephens Green shopping centre were empty last weekend. Might be that people who were paying €4.20 per hour for parking weren't interested in giving Q park any more money (certainly I was one of them 😜)

I'd be wary on those EB charging units. They have installed them in Q park car parks in Dublin. I used the one in Christchurch before Christmas. Plugshare said the charging was free but the parking wasn't.

Firstly they took something like €60 as a "hold" on my card. Turns out the charging wasn't free and it was 65cents a KW on a 22kw "slow" charger.

Your analogy was probably tested a couple of millennia ago and found unsuitable, but the answer was not to get rid of the restaurant or the hotel or charge 5000 shekels per hour.

There is a need for both AC and DC, even in places that some might not see a need for, but going back up, a rav4 was willing to charge and had no other option, damned when they charge, damned when they don't.

I just don't understand why people need to remove one type of user or make it expensive for everyone including themselves.

Many thanks for the feedback. I didn't spot that EasyGo has "+VAT" when showing their rates for ESB or IONITY chargers.

It's a pity that an universal app/gateway does exist to cover all charging networks in a cost effective way. And customers end up with having to set up multiple accounts and hold onto various cards/fobs/apps to ensure they can access different charger vendors when needed.

I'd nearly go one step further and increase it to an AC43 site in that case.

If you provide an equal number of parking spaces as you have charge plugs the AC/DC argument becomes a non-issue. Of course the spaces v chargers issue is one of ecars biggest problems