CircleK Chargers

I think there's a separate thread for the Circle K installs?

The one at Tinryland in Carlow is in since July or August last year and it's still not switched on.

Considering Circle K and Shell are both expanding charging networks in Europe I'm not sure that's the case. I imagine they're under significant pressure from their home governments to invest in green technology

Frankly I think they're both seeing the writing on the wall and are trying to diversify or get left behind

They've certainly far from heroes but I'll put them ahead of the likes of Exxon or Texaco who are still very much doing nothing

Regarding their lack of chargers in Ireland, I assume that's the usual story of us being down the priority list and there being more lucrative business elsewhere

We get paddy spec cars so I guess we'll have to suffice with a paddy spec charging network from some providers

ESBN taking ages with the grid connection, been talked about before

I'll admit they make a great whipping boy for all the charging networks problems, but it's been noted on many occasions that the timeline for installing a 300kW connection can be months, if not years

Not with the right bribe😎

Easygo installed a charger at a lidl and only 6 months later was it powered up, so I think petrol station owners underestimate the amount of time needed for a grid connection upgrade. Some got canvas covers over them to stop them rusting before being turned on.

Back on topic one of these had a rain cover added. Most are listed on plugshare app as "coming soon" but it's a handy place to add photos and a status over time. You can sometimes see planning reference, ground works, charger in place, charger on timelines, which can take multiple years.

Oh yay, another SPOF site. 300kW isn't much use if the charger is broken or iced 🙄

€7 million doesn't seem like a lot tbh, how many chargers is that going to buy at 150kW each, considering the grid connection will need upgrading? 🤔

Was just commenting on the Random EV thoughts thread, but I'm not particularly impressed. Circle K installing SPOF chargers isn't a good start.

300kW is nice, but useless if someone parks a truck in front of the charger

30 sites with €7 million is around €230k per site. Maybe enough for 2 chargers per site? Would make sense given Circle K have said next sites will be 150kW

It's not very clear whether it'll be 150kW per charger or per site

Hopefully per charger, we've seen from the Clonsaugh planning permission that they're planning multiple units on some sites at least

Hopefully they at least go for something similar to Applegreen with 2 chargers serving 4 spaces, that's a decent starting point

If it's anything like their fuel prices I shudder to imagine what the unit rates will be...

150kW is perfect, I've rarely seen the charging curve of any EV sustain higher for any worthwhile length of time.

I dunno how much communication there is between the different groups in each country.

I've generally got the impression that it would only be the senior management of each country reporting into managers in Norway

I'm not yet convinced there's a group handling a single user experience for all Circle K chargers throughout Europe

No. It's not future proofed. With the advent of silicon anodes and Na-ion both of which increase fast charging rates 150 kW will be in a situation where 50 kW DC is now (inadequate) in few years max.

Kia EV6 charges above 150 kW up to 80% SOC and maxes out at 230 kW at 50% SOC.

Even MG4 maxes at 143 kW (averages 100) and that's a cheap Chinese car. And then you have load balancing etc. 150 kW is too low if you make a long term relationship strategic investment.

It's not a good strategy.

I couldn't help but laugh at the fact that they used a picture of a Norwegian hub. They must not have been impressed with the Irish ones

The alternative was Eamonn with a single charger not connected to the grid.

Is there any way to see if these Circle K chargers are working/dead/occupied etc? I’ve tried the Circle K app and that’s useless, their website mentions EV chargers but doesn’t list the Carlow one. PlugShare lists them but doesn’t seem to show if they’re in use etc.

Well the hub situation might not be as bad as predicted, I worked out earlier that it's an average of €230k per site, which should be enough for a pair of 150kW chargers

And based on the planning application for Clonsaugh, at least some sites are planned as 4 charger hubs

I'm not going to say it's brilliant, but between Circle K and Applegreen it'd be a significant improvement over the current network

No I don't believe so, although it's very likely they are fully online and linked to a system capable of an app. They might be linking to common shared apps or upgrading or releasing their own app or not ready to invest in the whole app thing yet.

I find most supplier specific apps not great, they hide other brand chargers and don't give great real status as to problems reported unlike say plugshare app which shows chargers down 3+ days before esb send anyone to site while their app continues to usually say all good.

I do wonder is this a bit of green washing while they maybe open more new non EV petrol stations and they know long term petrol will be a dying business, and hubs and home charging is the future which is a different model and size to petrol stations today. I would like to see even one ambitious real hub as a test site.

In terms of 150 vs 300kW I think due to grid and equipment costs 150 multiple units are ok (although they drop to 75 with 2 users), units in 2+ years time could be 300kW but then the grid gets so expensive you need real regional hub type sites where motorways meet substations with excess capacity to keep grid costs reasonable and where demand for high speed, lots of customers 24/7 makes it viable.

On their website I searched for sites with electric car (high speed) chargers (presumably own brand only) and these sites with details were shown (3 ROI + 2 NI). They don't seem to all be online yet but are listed on the map.

Here is the general FAQ

I must cross reference the sites with plugshare app entries of "coming soon" to be sure they are all listed, if not I will add them. The two in NI are esb ecars old sites.

Ease of payment: 5/5 for taking debit card

Power available: 3/5 considering future chargers are going to be only 150kW

Locations: -10/5 for having SPOF sites and announcing locations on their map that aren't online yet

Overall score: -2

This is actually better than Ecars who scored a solid -1000 points in every category

I feel like there's some creative accounting going on with Circle K. The locations on the website would seem to indicate they're branded chargers, given none of the Ionity sites are listed

The press release was pretty quick to mention all the other chargers they're hosting in their service stations, nothing like some free PR 🙄

The Plaza sites have generally been more friendly to Ecars in the past, I think Tuam and Galway Plaza are both owned by that crowd and they both have Ecars 150kW units?

One possibility is that Circle K and Ecars could be doing something of a joint venture, perhaps the chargers will be branded Circle K but will appear on the Ecars network?

Ah okay, it seems the high speed EV charging must only have a subset of stations, possibly the Circle K branded ones

Yeah I'm forced to agree, while more chargers is good, I'm not seeing the level of commitment that we've seen from Applegreen

Not saying Applegreen are the greatest charging network in Ireland, but they have opened more sites than anyone this year and did just get planning permission for a 36 charger hub in Meath 😳

Compare this to Circle K who have so far rolled out a whole two chargers and are planning to open a few chargers across a small subset of locations

Give them a rounds of applause lads, a nice slow, sarcastic round of applause....

The Birdhill planning application is withdrawn at this stage as the coffee drive-thru was rejected. CircleK has one planning permission granted since 2021 and nothing yet

Personally I prefer CircleK style of being open to others operators as opposed to AG kicking off the other networks or not allowing developments.

I reckon we need a publicly owned supplier of charge points to do faster rollouts, a good one, not like ESB

They aren't very friendly to the electricity supply at the portlaoise plaza