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Day 3 of electric vehicle driving in Northern Ireland. Observations:
- a lot of the public charge points (esp the high power ones) are broken
- EV drivers are very nice at sharing chargers etc
- 50kW is a lot of electricity to shoot up a cable and it's pretty cool
- a lot of the public charge points (esp the high power ones) are broken
- EV drivers are very nice at sharing chargers etc
- 50kW is a lot of electricity to shoot up a cable and it's pretty cool
I pulled up beside an American driving a Tesla tonight and every single plug but the really slow AC one wasn't working lmao
Afaik there's a SINGLE DIGIT number of rapid chargers in Northern Ireland and none faster than 50kW. There's 1.8 million people here. It's pretty silly.
My car (a Hyundai IONIQ) is *super* efficient (I'm averaging 140Wh/km at 3C temperatures) so the car's 50kW charging limit isn't an issue at all cos it doesn't actually need that much to zoom.
Additional observations: The "rapid" chargers in NI are all 5-10 years old and are currently being "maintained" on a charity basis by the RoI electricity infrastructure company. The "rapid" chargers here due to age and type of repairs also often pump out far lower than 50kW D:
On top of that, on a cycle through Belfast City Centre last night I noticed about 80% of the "fast" AC chargers I spotted were either faulty or completely off. The infrastructure here is an absolute joke lmao
Apparently NI had pretty excellent EV infra compared to other places a decade ago but it's just been... static for most of the time since. The tech is outdated so replacement parts are difficult to get so faults just get left to continue or worsen.
EV drivers get free public charging in Northern Ireland. There's much fewer of these problems south of the border where EV drivers pay for electricity (as they should).
In addition, until last year it was illegal to sell electricity to a third party so no other chargers.
In addition, until last year it was illegal to sell electricity to a third party so no other chargers.
I'll try to document experiences at the public chargers here in NI. I *can* charge at home some of the time using a handy channel in the very-lightly-travelled footpath, but the councils in NI have used literally ÂŁ0 of the many millions available for residential installations.
It's all just very Northern Ireland. Did it well once, let it to rot into oblivion even as demand increases. On the local EV groups people are selling their EVs and going back to fossil fuel cars because it's just too stressful to travel far with the network as it is.
For those in places with good public transport: Northern Ireland does not have good public transport, especially in comparison to the rest of Europe. Yes, it's publicly owned, but it's been run into the ground over decades by austerity.
I'll need to drive in England shortly for urgent healthcare stuff for a loved one and looking up the network there, even in the north of the country, is just another world entirely.
EVs are still cars and they shouldn't take priority over public transport. But they're never gonna replace ICE cars as they'll need to here unless the infrastructure gets replaced - at the moment, the consensus seems to be it's quickly getting worse.
Oh and yes, Derry, NI's second biggest city, has one "rapid" charger that does about 70% of its nominal capacity. Belfast has a few more but they're often out for the count.
Just charge for them like everywhere else and make them actually dependable.
Just charge for them like everywhere else and make them actually dependable.
I'll guarantee you most people who travel across the province regularly will prefer being guaranteed not to be calling a tow truck in Maghera than getting a few kWh for free at a station that's maintained through lighting a candle at Mass every week
