SSE Energy Solutions

No one will use it at that price unless towing. CircleK on the bypass is both faster and cheaper

Very pricey,just got ev,put 55kwkh into it for a grand total of 6.87e ,home charging is unbeatable.

Exactly. I know the aim for the hub in mullingar is commercial vehicles more than private cars but I can't see this hub being a success sadly. Lough Sheever hub is well off the N4 so the likely users commercial and private will have to divert into mullingar.

EVs owners I've found are surprisingly, or maybe unsurprisingly price sensitive when they are presented with a choice. Say at portlaoise midway, the ESB chargers are always preferentially chosen over applegreen. It's the same at Fermoy, ESB at inver is always in my experience more busy than circle K and that even requires a small diversion.

If they'd built that hub down the road at say at Longford where there are currently no chargers >50kw then they'd have something of a captive market for north mayo and sligo. They could charge what they like really there.

I doubt more than single figure number of vehicles will use the hub on a daily basis. A ten bay hub would need at least more than five simultaneous vehicles for substantial parts of the day to make sense.

Given it's location requiring a diversion 55c/kwh is where pricing needs to be imo.

They would but a) commercial drivers may have a company issued card or rfid for charging so are not price sensitive and/or b) would pay the increased price for lack of queue

Solar canopy, 2 x Chademo cables, 8 x CCS cables 150kW headline rate, charging bays for trailers or hgv or caravans.

Its free today, but I think main issues are location and the fact that 99.9% of EV drivers won't know they exist and will queue at other nearby sites. Price is a factor too, but personally at this point in time I value availability and multi charger sites over cost.

SSE will open further hubs at Blanchardstown Business Park and the Greenogue Industrial Estate in Dublin and at the Ashbourne Retail Park, Co Meath, in the coming months.

I assume no food offering too? Touch to pay by card? No toilets?

https://www.plugshare.com/location/455013

Great to see a site catering to trailers or trucks, but the lack of services isn't great

I wouldn't be too happy hanging around there at night with nothing around there

or a discount for residential customers

Someone will probably move in with an old horsebox selling overpriced tea and coffee to a captive audience if the place takes off.

That;s an interesting observation. It doesn't tie in with my observations around dublin, meath and wexford though. Perhaps it's different in different places. There are often queues for the ecars 50kW at gorey, while the 4 (now 6) ionity chargers are available. Cashel is an oddball location, been there many times over the years and I hate the place.

Personally, I would pay more to avoid queues and also pay more for speed. So if there's a queue at a free vend 350kW and an available Ionity 350kW, I'll pay for the ionity. If there's a price delta for 50-150-350kW increasing speeds then I'll pay for the max of what my car can take.

The SSE place should have been cheaper as its their first site in ROI market located in the back arse of nowhere and it would do them good to get the name out. Like Ionity did with the 8 quid one fee.

Yeah, I mentioned commercial because SSE seems to be aiming for commercial customers given the location and layout of their sites

It would be good to offer a discount or subscription to residential customers as well. They could do a spot price deal where the price updates every 30 mins. That would be handy for people who live in the area to grab some electricity when it's cheaper

Was free for first week, now 65c/kWh

I've known people who will drive 20 mins out of their way to save less than €5 on petrol (full disclosure, that was me 😅)

So I can guarantee it'll get some use

This is where decent motorway signage would make life easier. If there was a sign up before the Circle K with a live display if the number of free chargers then it'd be easy to spot if it was worth pushing on to Lough Sheever

Yes I know there's an app but checking your phone while driving is a bad idea

Going through the town of Fermoy to avoid the toll is a ball ache. Traffic levels are higher now than they were pre motorway.

You could easily add 20-30 mins to your journey just to "save" €2.30.