National EV Charging Infrastructure Strategy

From what most petrol station franchises have said they're very much behind EV charging. Makes sense in many ways because EV drivers charging for 20-30 mins are more likely to buy something in the shop where the profit margin is higher

I heard an anecdote years ago that petrol stations make the same profit on a cup of coffee as a full tank of diesel despite the diesel being much more valuable

Not sure if that's still true but I can't imagine it's changed significantly either

Profit margins can be very strange, I heard once that the cardboard popcorn buckets in cinemas cost more than the popcorn in them

Back on the topic of charging, it's good to see that things like facilities are considered as part of the grant

My biggest concern is that there's still no clear requirements for chargers to accept credit card payments. There's something about non discriminatory access and confirming to the UDG (Universal Design Guidelines?), but unless it's clearing spelled out then we'll be stuck with apps and RFID cards forever

anyone attend this or know what the update was?

https://x.com/infrasummitie/status/1786050742047985863?s=46&t=JJzoP-ETgaWRYF7T_Hzysg

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41403542.html

Now all we need is an actual 'motorway network' that will at least join the 2 largest cities outside of Dublin.

Yeah its total bollox. What we actually need are enough chargers at enough sites that when you need a charge you can just pull into a station and be guaranteed that you dont have to wait and that there are enough working chargers so that you dont actually notice if any are broken.

I think it'd reasonable to have the Cork-Belfast route go via Dublin. My only complaint would be some upgrades around Banbridge are needed.

I was thinking recently about 'Petrol Stations/Filling Stations/Garages' - with the uptake in EV's, how long will it be before they feel the pinch so to speak - a lot of Stations could do with installing one or even a two bay charging area.

There is more coverage now in the Journal and also a link to the Government strategy

https://www.thejournal.ie/electric-vehicle-charging-plan-6390298-May2024/

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41403542.html

https://www.gov.ie/en/campaigns/18b95-zero-emission-vehicles-ireland/?referrer=https://www.gov.ie/zevi/

I think they were talking about having a motorway between Cork and Limerick :)

The Dub-Belfast route is pretty well serviced now, mostly on the NI side. Pity that the Applegreen in Castlebellingham isn't open to non-Teslas (empty pretty much all the time) , and Applegreen can't/won't put in more than one unit.

For people travelling from Belfast/NI to somewhere south/west of Dublin, there's several spots around the m50 now too.

As said above, most motorways are reasonably well serviced with chargers, but the problem is there's lots of locations with just one or two units. What we need is a few locations with 10+ spaces and 5+ 150kW minimum charger units. The 10-bay SSE hub with 150kW chargers in Mullingar that will hopefully open soon is an example of what we need more of on the motorway network.

I waited 1.5 hours to charge there the Sunday before last.

Motorway chargers are all great, but Ireland has thousands of KMs of roads and loads of tourist attractions that are more than 50-60kms away from the nearest motorway (120km+ round trip) and have very sparce charging infrastructure.

They don't need to be 150kw rapid chargers, just enough juice to be able to get to somewhere like the Cliffs of Moher, top up by enough power to be able to get you another 100kms within a reasonable length of time if you're stuck

Once you get to Ennis, which is a major gateway to the Burren and the biggest tourist attraction in Ireland (the cliffs of Moher) there is a single 'rapid charger' (a single 50kwh ESB charger in Ennis) and one more in Lahinch, and that's basically it. If Either of those two chargers are out of order or being used when you get to them, you could be in for a long wait.

Neither charger are in central locations either, so you're hanging around a car park for an hour waiting for the thing to charge or to become available.

A lot of Irish tourism is based on scenic drives along the west coast (wild atlantic way) and these roads are basically charger free zones, so if you want to encourage BEVs there needs to be a strategy to get the infrastructure along these routes to support charging.

I fully agree. Any attraction where you spend 1 hr+ like the Cliffs should just have a bank of sufficient number of 11 kW charging points. And the sufficiency of the "sufficient number" should be reviewed regularly. We visited the Eden Project in Cornwall a couple of years ago and it was handy to have a several days worth of electricity in the car while visiting there. The convinience was immense.

It's the same story in most of the areas that are popular for staycations. The peninsulas of Cork & Kerry, North Clare, Connemara, North Mayo & Rural Donegal are all devoid of decent charging infrastructure. Holidaying for a week or two in those places is not a very attractive proposition for EV owners.

On breaking news article 131 new charging stations by end of 2025 plus grants stay the same for 2025. Good News!

Government press release on this

https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/bb54c-minister-ryan-announces-131-new-high-powered-recharging-points-across-irelands-national-road-network/