Tag: eCars

ESB ecars announces price decreases of up to 13% for tariffs across its EV charging network

ESB ecars has today announced a planned price decrease across its public EV charging network in the Republic of Ireland, which will be effective from Friday, 21st June. This will see unit rates for High-Power (200kW) chargers reduce by 13%, Fast chargers reduce by 12% and Standard chargers reduce by 8%.

Contactless payments will also be available on High-Power Chargers from the end of this week.

The existing one-off overstay fee of €8 has been replaced by a more progressive, incremental fee to further encourage drivers to free up charge points for other drivers when finished charging.

ESB’s most recent customer survey found that 76% of respondents support the overstay fee. The new overstay fee structure is 50c/min and kicks in after 45 minutes on High-Power and Fast chargers and after 10 hours on Standard chargers.

Commenting on the price reduction, John Byrne, Head of eMobility at ESB, said: “We are pleased to announce a reduction of prices across our extensive EV public charging network.

We are lowering our prices following reductions in wholesale energy costs while continuing to upgrade and improve our charging infrastructure across the country. We keep our prices under constant review and are committed to providing value to our customers with competitive prices.”

To ensure customers are notified of when overstay fees would apply, ESB is encouraging all drivers to turn on notifications on the ESB ecar connect app. Customers will receive push notifications as a reminder about the overstay fee when they start their charge.

ESB has installed 42 multi-vehicle, high-power charging hubs nationwide over the past two years and replaced over 300 chargers to increase the speed and capacity of the charging network.

ESB now has over 1,600 public charge points in place across the country with an average reliability rate of 98%.

For more information, visit esb.ie/ecars

IEVA writes to eCARS and Minister Ryan TD concerned at the “Unreasonable High Cost of DC Fast Charging”

The Irish Electric Vehicle Association [IEVA] has written to John Byrne, head of ESB eCARS, asking that the cost of DC Fast Charging at eCARS be reduced immediately to pre-Ukraine-war levels.  Eamon Stack, CEO said, “Our members were shocked at the over 100% cost increase last year and even more upset at the failure to reduce the cost now.  Our charges are among the highest in Europe.”

We believe the maintenance of this high cost is unreasonable for four reasons:

1. A substantial % of the power in the National grid is generated by wind, whose base cost did not increase with the tragic Ukraine war.   The State is the major stakeholder of the ESB group and can distribute their substantial dividends to balance this injustice;

2. The speed with which eCARS increased the cost of charging, with the increase in the wholesale gas market, was not matched with an equivalent decrease when the wholesale price of gas market dropped. The wholesale price of electricity dropped 13.5% in April alone;

3. We strongly believe the increased cost will slow down the adoption of EVs which is contrary to Government strategy.  eCARS prices are comparable with some commercial providers, significantly higher than Tesla [€0.47], yet their service is primarily funded by the State. The high cost is being used by EV detractors to undermine the transition;

4. To add insult to injury, the quality of the current enroute charging service does not  match the high cost.  There are too few chargepoints, too many out-of-service, and too slow – charge speeds often below 50kW rate.

For these four reasons, the CEO continued: “the IEVA membership strongly encourages eCARS to reduce prices immediately to pre-Ukraine war levels. This action, we believe, will encourage other chargepoint providers to also reduce their prices.”

We have also written to Minister Eamon Ryan TD, Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications and Minister for Transport.  We believe he needs to act on behalf of the major stakeholder at ESB Group to rectify the situation.