Press Releases

Press Releases

IEVOA Press release – Introduction of charges on ESB Ecars fast charging network

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23rd October 2019

On Wednesday (23-Oct-2019), ESB ecars announced details of the arrangements to be put in place for paid charging on their Fast Public Charging infrastructure.

The full press release can be found here: https://esb.ie/tns/press-centre/2019/2019/10/23/esb-ecars-introduce-pricing-to-support-ev-network-expansion

In summary:

  • Paid charging on 50kW fast chargers will commence on 18th November 2019
  • Users wishing to avail of this service will be required to sign-up from 29th October
  • Charging will be priced per kWh used with two price plan options:
    • ‘Pay As You Go’ at 33c per kWh
    • ‘Membership’ with a €5 monthly subscription fee at 29c per kWh
  • A limited time introductory offer (available from 29th October until the end of November) will provide the ‘Membership’ rate with no monthly subscription for 12 months
  • A €5 overstay fee will apply for charging sessions exceeding 45 minutes
  • Standard 22kW AC chargers will continue to be free to use for the time being
  • Pricing for High Power Chargers (150kW DC) will be announced once the first high power hubs are installed in early 2020
  • Fees will not apply to the network in Northern Ireland at this time.

The IEVOA is broadly supportive of the measures announced having long held the view that the introduction of paid charging will be positive for current EV owners and will also support on-going EV adoption in line with the objective of the Climate Action Plan. Further, we commend the ESB in taking on board feedback from our members during the consultation process as the measures announced very much follow what the majority of our membership indicated they would like to see when surveyed earlier this year.

The advent of paid charging will allow expansion of the existing EV infrastructure in line with ESBs plans announced in late 2018, including the much needed introduction of high power charging hubs at key locations. It will also allow for the network to be fully maintained and upgraded as required into the future. Furthermore, paid charging opens the way for competition allowing other charge network operators to bring their plans to fruition. This can only be positive for EV owners with more chargers, more choice and competition on pricing. Meanwhile, the price point selected will still ensure that EVs are cheaper to run than their ICE equivalents, whilst encouraging those able to avail of home charging to do so as a preference. Finally, overstay fees should help discourage blocking of chargers for excessive periods, hence the network should be more available to those who need it.

Feedback so far from our membership indicates that they may have liked to have seen a higher overstay fee and also measures to ensure that the overstay fee isn’t easily avoided by unplugging and restarting another session, but we are assured that these trends will be monitored.

We must also acknowledge that this is new territory in Ireland and a starting point. The ESB are open to revising these measures should this prove necessary. To this end the IEVOA will keep close contact with ESB ecars over the coming months following introduction of paid charging, passing on feedback from our members and ensuring their voices are heard.

Contact : pr@irishevowners.ie

IEVOA position on the new scheme for on-street charge points for electric vehicles

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On Monday (26-Aug-2019), Minister Bruton announced a plan to deploy 1000 charge points (up to 200 per annum) over the next 5 years. Capital will support up to 75% (or €5,000) of the cost of each charge point and these will be implemented and operated by county and city councils.
On top of this a new regulation requiring non-domestic buildings with over 20 car parking spaces to install charging facilities will be introduced.

The IEVOA is glad that a different perspective is given to the development of infrastructure and with a more local implementation, closer to communities needs and local initiatives… Whilst this plan is welcome, the number of charge points are small, the roll-out long, and many more public charging points will be necessary to support the million electric vehicles expected by 2030 under the Climate Action plan.

With the advent of paid charging over the next year or so we would hope to see more charge stations operators rolling out public charge stations which will add to the numbers available all over Ireland.

The IEVOA, on behalf of its members, will engage with local authorities and offer its expertise to support the optimal implementation of these charging points.

Contact : pr@irishevowners.ie

Climate Action Plan 2019

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“The IEVOA welcomes today’s Climate Action Plan announcement from the Irish government and its objectives in moving Ireland away from our heavy reliance on fossil fuels and to dramatically reduce our co2 emissions. This will continue to support the EV adoption growth and will therefore have to be backed up by serious investments. Association members are eager for an expansion of a reliable charging network – particularly fast charging hubs, with multiple charging ports, offering increased availability, reliability, supported with high levels of maintenance so it scales all the way to be able to cater for 1 million vehicles in 2030. We look forward to further announcements.”

Find below the Climate action plan documents:

https://www.dccae.gov.ie/en-ie/climate-action/topics/climate-action-plan/Pages/climate-action.aspx

Climate Action Fund announcement on EV charging network

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This is the IEVOA statement related to today’s Climate Action fund announcement

“The IEVOA welcomes today’s announcement of the €10 million funding for ESB Ecars to develop a faster charging network (150kw vs 50kw currently), as part of the Climate Action Fund. This will continue to support the EV adoption growth, as the number of EV’s on the Irish roads are now reaching 7500, twice as many as just 1 year ago, with an even more substantial growth anticipated for 2019. This will therefore have to be backed up by further investments. Association members are eager for an expansion of a reliable charging network – particularly fast charging hubs, with multiple charging ports, offering increased availability, reliability, supported with high levels of maintenance. We look forward to further announcements.”

Contact : pr@irishevowners.ie

 

Statement of the IEVOA in response to the announcement of reduced toll charges for EVs

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The IEVOA (The Irish EV Owners Association) welcomes the initiative as announced by Minister Shane Ross and feel that this is a step in the right direction to incentivise the uptake of electric vehicles in Ireland. This step is important as currently Ireland is “second-worst in EU on climate change action” as published by the Irish Times on Monday June 18 th 2018. Ireland is liable to face annual, non-compliance fines of approximately €500million should we not reach our emissions targets. In Ireland, transport is second only to agriculture when it comes to CO2 emissions and therefore electrifying our private transport plays a key part in reducing these emissions and bringing us closer to meeting our targets.

On the matter of plug-in hybrids being included and conventional hybrid cars being excluded, the IEVOA feels that this is appropriate as, while conventional hybrid cars do have some electric components, they have very limited electric only range. The result of this is that conventional hybrids still emit quite high amounts of CO2 through their tailpipe emissions – roughly 70g of CO2 per kilometre vs 140g CO2 per kilometre for the same size petrol car. With this in mind it makes sense to incentivise only vehicles that are capable of running without actively producing dangerous emissions from their exhausts. It is important to highlight this difference amid confusing claims being made by some manufacturers that their hybrids are “self-charging” and therefore do not need to be plugged in. This claim can cause confusion and lead people to believe that these cars are just like plug-in hybrids without the charging and this is certainly not the case.

While we are pleased at the introduction of reduced tolls for low and zero emissions vehicles, and feel that it is a step in the right direction, the IEVOA feel that there is a lot more work to be done to
make Ireland a more EV friendly country. Issues such as further development, support and repair of the charging network are high on the committee’s agenda.

Please find below the statement in pdf format:

Statement of the IEVOA in response to the announcement of reduced toll charges for EVs

Contact : pr@irishevowners.ie

Formal complaint filed to RTE for “Today with Sean O’Rourke” program

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Dear members,

Sean O’Rourke, RTE Radio 1

Yesterday it came to our attention that RTE aired a program called “Today with Sean O’Rourke” which had a segment on EVs in Ireland. It is our belief that this segment was a breach of the Broadcasting Act 2009, section 39(1) subsection B in that the content of the program was entirely based on subjective opinion and it presented these opinions as fact in a manner which could do damage to the uptake of EVs in Ireland. RTE did not, in our opinion, provide enough of a counter argument nor did it make any effort to espouse any of the positive aspects of EV ownership. As such, the committee has submitted a formal complaint to RTE following their formal complaint procedures.

We wish our members to know that we take these matters very seriously and always aim to be proactive in meeting these issues head on. We will continue to update our members on the progress of our formal complaint as and when we receive updates from RTE or the BAI.

Yours,

Your IEVOA committee members.