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Ecotricity's Electric Highway at All Time Best !

9K views 79 replies 27 participants last post by  Leafquester 
#1 ·
Only 13 rapid charge points are shown as out of order on their map today, 5 ChadeMo/AC and 6 CCS out of a total of 283.

That is a fantastic effort to get the charge points up an running and all involved should be congratulated !
 
#2 ·
It is good news...

Let's hope that now they consider the network worth charging us a fee to use so we can get 24/7 support and get all the opportunity chargers off the network and free it up for those that really need it.

I hope the reliability continues :)
 
#3 ·
I'm not sure why someone living OFF the Ecotricity 'electric highway' is advocating the introduction of charging? I, for one, have travelled freely(!) on the M3. M4 and M1 - I'm in no hurry to see rates similar to ChargeMeister being introduced - it would cramp the freedom of myself and others!

Ecotricity has done more than any organisation (except maybe OLEV) to promote the virtue of low carbon/ super economical motoring!

Well done Ecotricity - sincere thanks for the concession! But do keep on with 'incentivising' the 'EV lifestyle' - just as long as it's helping you grow your 'core business'. :rolleyes::cool::LOL:
 
#4 ·
I'm not sure why someone living OFF the Ecotricity 'electric highway' is advocating the introduction of charging?
Personally I can't wait for the introduction of paid charging - at the moment a lot of people are charging on the Electric Highway because it's free, not because they actually need a charge. It was fine even six months ago, but we've seen quite an increase in the number of BEVs and PHEVs around and so some sites are now starting to see some contention, and that's only going to get worse. I had one instance a few weeks ago where I had to wait over an hour to get on a charger simply because of a queue (with the gentleman charging admitting that he only lived a few miles away). I'm not preaching by the way - I've done it myself plenty of times, but charging will discourage that and make the chargers available for those that actually need them.
 
#6 ·
To correlate charger availability with 'charges' seems a remote possility. Even the idea that charging will bring a 24/7 Help-line seems naive. Such a service will be driven by 'commercial imperatives'. If it doesn't directly contribute to revenue - it won't happen - simple as that! IMHO.
 
#8 ·
You are right of course but the commercial imperative is that if they don't properly support it people won't pay :)
 
#9 ·
Maybe the Help Lines have been used too often by drivers who have contributed to their own dilemma by running to the limit of range before attempting to charge. I suspect that very rarely can the charging service provider make a system action that will resolve the fault. Drivers need to operate defensively and understand the needs for 'fallback'. Whilst most EVs have a 13 amp charging option - getting 'stranded' is a self-inflicted and unnecessary injury. IMHO

There can be no commercial justification for a service dealing with other people's bad decision making - that I can foresee. Unless you charge £30 a time for counselling on how to plan, navigate and operate an EV!

Charge points need to operate as 'dumb terminals'. The solution is surely in improving reliability - which can include an element of redundancy. If a ChargePoint cannot give 99% reliability it should never be installed.
 
#11 ·
I agree in theory -- my only reservation is that on an another thread @LettuceLeaf found the reliability of free Ecotricity to be superior to the paid-for competition...
 
#12 ·
... and how many are coughing up to join the opposition? Some... but not many if my suspicions are correct. I think that the Highway will have a better chance of signing people up though than any of the opposition so far but they will have to maintain reliability and support if they want people long term :)
 
#17 ·
We had this discussion sometime ago - it seemed only too obvious to branch off a Type-2 before the 'rapid' circuitry; whilst attractive in principle, it gives no redundancy if the failure is in power supply, or control circuits.

Ecotricity have declared that Dual Rapids would give the necessary redundancy + there was an assumption that core hardware/software would become more reliable. In summary they were +\- almost right! My observation is that CYC have few dual-rapid solutions - but they have found better reliability with better engineered chargers from ABB and Seimens. So they too have been almost right too!

The reality is that once users get 'hooked' on rapid chargers, they don't want to uses Fast Chargers - if at all possible. In my own experience, I'll divert 20-30 get get another 'rapid', rather that waste half a day on a 'fast' charger!
 
#15 ·
Yes, but it only works with cars that have a type2 socket and in any case it is on the same charger so it isn't much of a back up
 
#19 ·
Be friggin hilarious if ecotricity announced it was a flat fee of £10 for 30mins. Be a lot of red faces around here.

Plus as Ecotricity have a monopoly by and large on the motorway network we would all be powerless to choose to charge elsewhere.
 
#22 ·
Interesting point. Once Ecotricity start charging I wonder if they will fall prey to the Competition Commission? It is hard to deny that they have an effective monopoly on MSAs.
 
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#21 ·
Doubling up is good but not when the double is Chad/CCS/AC and Chad/CCS. Or if they do continue go that route they need to ensure the lone AC post is always working.
 
#39 ·
I know that you won't particularly like this comment Sandy but as a long term solution there are way too many standards in operation for rapid charging. One of these standards is very different from the others - that being AC rapid charging. AC rapid charging has also been dropped by the vendor. I don't see that AC rapid charging has a long term future or that we will see too much future investment in it.

Now, I think that there is an exceptionally good argument that there should be wide introduction of 22kWh units and we have seen that Ecotricity have deployed some of these in the past. I do not however see that AC Rapid, especially when piggy backing on the DC rapid standards will exist for TOO much longer
 
#24 ·
The only way to avoid a monopoly would be for every other rapid charging station on the motorway to be awarded to another operator, so that drivers could at least allocate Plan A and Plan B to competing companies. If for any given location all reachable chargers are run by the same company, that's still a monopoly.
 
#26 ·
There are not two possible charger operators in any MSA for my car. Incidentally you could argue that Tesla have a monopoly on Super Chargers. But it doesn't count for Tesla drivers as they are free at point of use. And Tesla can use a ChaDeMo adapter anyway.
 
#27 ·
Agreed, doubling up should be with comparible kit. Or it's not doubling up its landing to one mode of charging over another.

I do hope they put in a charging structure that doesn't penalise the infrequent users. I.e those that use it the most should pay the most, I fear however it'll swing the other way.
 
#28 ·
In summary - there can be no suggestion of an Ecotricity monopoly - just a long as it remains a 'free' service. People on this site who advocate the introduction of charging-for- charging risk shooting themselves in the proverbial foot - actually both feet simultaneously.

Ecotricity has prolly got huge excesses of power from wind vanes, that would otherwise have to be feathered, or shut down! Maybe we are doing a Ecotricity a favour for making a plausible case for exploitation of unusable capacity from the renewable energy industry!

It a win-win we get to exploit unusable wind energy and they get to develop a business case from asynchronous energy production! :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
#30 ·
In summary - there can be no suggestion of an Ecotricity monopoly - just a long as it remains a 'free' service. People on this site who advocate the introduction of charging-for- charging risk shooting themselves in the proverbial foot - actually both feet simultaneously.

Ecotricity has prolly got huge excesses of power from wind vanes, that would otherwise have to be feathered, or shut down! Maybe we are doing a Ecotricity a favour for making a plausible case for exploitation of unusable capacity from the renewable energy industry!

It a win-win we get to exploit unusable wind energy and they get to develop a business case from asynchronous energy production! :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
That was exactly my point: once it becomes chargeable -- and only then -- then Ecotricity become vulnerable to charges (yet another meaning of the word!) of monopolistic practices.
 
#31 ·
A lot of time I'd be happy with a 22kw charger, buyout we'll never get enough of them because it's only currently the Zoe and about 2 B series electric cars that benefit from anything over 7kw on AC. :(
 
#32 ·
How about free for 22kw output and pay and go for higher max output. Covers all bases and ensures maximum dwell for a free charge which fits in well with this forums expectation of all chargers being blocked by slow charging freeloaders. ;)
 
#33 ·
I note that, on another thread, CYC have joined in for a light-hearted banter. Maybe, we could persuade Ecotricity to 'have a spin ' with Speak EV? I'm sure they do occasional snoop?

I would hope that if/when they pop-up, thy could be assured of a friendly welcome! (y)(y)(y) (Thumb Up?)
 
#34 ·
I think Ecotricity have given up on SpeakEV because if was just too time-consuming to handle the feeding frenzy every time they betrayed their presence...
 
#35 ·
I've a feeling that Speak EV is calmer now - more mature!

Maybe we should guard against any stalking wolves who might make a premature attack. CYC have a very good msg/likes ratio - rather suggesting that they are popular with Speak EV members!

Could Ecotricity top the popularity stakes? I'll give them "Dix Points"! :D
 
#40 ·
@Jason Wallace it's part of the same industry agreed standard as CCS so they can't just drop it.

Let's put it this way, 30% of Joe publics ICE are diesel, so let's just scrap diesel pumps. Never gonna happen.
 
#43 ·
If the manufacturers stopped selling diesel cars would you expect to see investment being put into new pumps?

But it is not even that is it? A diesel pump can be cleaned and converted to petrol. Your analogy would have to find a completely different pumping technology, say LPG.

I know that you take any comment about a Zoe as being a personal insult and an attack but this is not. We are talking about a standard that exists to support one model from one manufacturer and that manufacturer has decided to abandon the standard. Implementing AC Rapid adds cost and complexity to the rapids that simply does not need to be there.

Renault themselves have indicated that the way to go for Zoe is 22kWh chargers. These are not THAT much slower in most use cases than AC Rapid and are massively cheaper to deploy - and when they ARE deployed can charge two cars at the same time. Oh, and the units have proved to be rock solid in terms of reliability.

Renault have three models of EV on the road. They have three totally different sets of charging requirements. They have now reduced this.

I struggle to understand why you don't follow Renault's lead and try to see more 22kWh provision rather than defend a standard which is the 4 star of the EV world
 
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