ESB eCars

Junction 14 offline from 9am till 4pm tomorrow. Thats just mental, brand new charging hub on an extremely busy motorway. Can't they do the works at night? I bet the petrol station won't lose power.

The term "brand new" might be a stretch here. It opened as a charging hub over 2 years ago now. Agreed that the petrol/diesel pumps are given priority here

Ah now, you can't be expecting those poor ESBN workers to work at night? 😏

I guess in the case of the petrol station the argument is that if it does lose power there's always another one down the road

Same logic probably doesn't hold true for EV chargers yet, nearest equivalent hub is probably Ionity Kill?

There's other chargers around that area but not to the same scale as Mayfield

As someone who would use the poles to 'manage cable' and assumed any risk was contained by the manufactured standards of the cable I have been interested in the discussion.

I am wondering:

Has eCars consider the risk of coiling? Either they have and did not consider the risk significant , or they did not consider it at all. Yes, the poles they use protect equipment, but they could hardly be any more perfectly positioned or any more perfectly designed to coil cable . A staple-shaped barrier, for example, would protect the equipment while at the same time making coiling cables highly impractical, for example.

As there is a risk from coiling your cable on the pole, and also a risk from leaving it straddled across the ground (one being a heat / fire risk, the other a trip hazard), which do we think is the greater risk? Or are both highly insignificant? (I haven't heard of any accidents from either, and you can be sure an any EV related injury would be widely reported).

Finally - is there a better way to avoid both risks, i.e. some way to safely put cables out of harms way (of various lengths and widths) while not risking overheating?

Regarding coiled cables around the metal poles, I think the risks might be a bit overstated here

They aren't zero for sure and it's probably highly inadvisable, but I don't think there's a high risk of starting a fire either (with a well maintained cable)

If you think about the case of extension leads, the risk seems to stem from the fact that you have a long length of wire (25m or more) tightly wound in an extremely non fireproof reel

So the risk is the cable will heat up under full load, damage the insulation and reel and possibly start a fire

Interesting fact, my cable reel is specced to be used while coiled in, however at a fraction of the rated capacity. It's a 3000W reel but that drops to something like 800W when using it coiled

Looking at an EV charging cable, the current is higher for sure, but the length of cable is much shorter (5-7m)

You probably couldn't wrap more than 50% round the pole and it would be loosely wound (unless you're going to hang out of the cable to keep it under tension for several hours)

And then there's the fact that the pole itself is a large hollow mass of metal. It has a lot of thermal mass to heat up, and it's in open air so it should dissipate heat pretty quickly

You'd also hope the cable insulation is a bit heavier duty then your standard twin and earth extension lead cable, what with EV chargers generally being outdoors

I think if you looked at the worst case scenario, a fairly tightly wound cable on a pole with the sun beating down charging away at 7kW for 11 hours, you might damage the insulation slightly, in which case you're down a charging cable

So in summary, don't do it. Try to keep the cable tidy without coiling it around something, but if you have coiled it around the poles before then there's no need to hang your head in shame

I met him this morning, he was charging his car, and he had his cable around the pole I didn't say anything as he has enough problems and certainly didn't need me pontificating to him.

Will there be that many though? I mean we're talking about work hours on a Wednesday, not a bank holiday weekend when every EV driver in Dublin is heading down south

And they have forewarned people, there was the app notification, and I'm sure there's a notice on Twitter and there might be an email notification soon

Since it's almost impossible to use the chargers without being an Ecars member, they've probably gotten most of their customers who will then need to replan their journey for all of 5 mins

It's an inconvenience for sure, but that's kind of all it is, not a catastrophe

Yes, this would be my cable management strategy, or try to keep it in the gutter

The cable I got with the ID.4 is pretty heavy duty, could probably handle being cooked up. I think the 1st editions got a 22kW cable for a car that maxes out at 11kW (great economics there)

On the plus side, it makes a handy anti theft system. If anyone tried to rob you while you're plugging in you could hit them with the coiled up cable*

There's probably enough mass to knock them out while you beat a hasty exit

*I am joking, don't ever do this. Your stuff is less important than your health and assaulting someone with a weapon who's robbing you is actually illegal

I normally try and keep the cable off the ground but try never to coil the cable. Fortunately Tesla supplied me with a fairly short type 2 cable.

Main reason is because a local type 2 charge point has a grass area at back of unit and local dogs use it as a public toilet. They seem to like cocking their leg against the unit..😯

I have fitted an extra hook on the wall and tend to run the cable there and back to keep if off ground when charging. I would be very slow coiling the cable after I had an extension cable reel tripping its thermal fuse on me when granny charging.

I have mine going over a garden chair, keeps it clean and dry, I haven't used it in public yet, it's a heavy bugger being a proper 32A 3 phase cable.

Not a boards member obviously 😊

And look, the pole hasn't melted or anything, one for mythbusters I think.

And cross the streams as well to add to the melty goodness........................

Surprised today to notice that I was over-charged for a charging session at Park Ri in Kells Tuesday this week. I was using the 50kW charger, drawing approx. 40kW for 11 minutes, increasing Model 3 SR+ battery range from approx. 9% to 23% - works out around 7.3 kWh - but billed for 21.72 kWh. Going to contact eCars now.

What was the session duration according to the app?

Any chance you were plugged into the 150kW charger instead of the 50kW? - I note that 3-times 7.3kW is roughly 21.0kW.