Travelling to Co. Donegal in April advice please

[Torokruger]

Hi all

Travelling to parents (Rathmullen Donegal) in April via Belfast done the route in ABRP and have located various chargers en route, parents do not have a charger but at a push could use 3 pin.
Questions
I have a CYC Scotland card, will that work with ESB chargers ?
It seems ESB in NI are free and the two I have looked at are Jamesie's Garage [ESB ecars] Glenshane Road 31B, Maghera,
and 1 in Derry Maxol Service Station [ESB ecars] Glendermott Road
and a couple in Letterkennny which I think you pay for.

Now I may be overthinking this or am being overly concerned by Icing or chargers not working but would like to get to my parents 20 odd miles from Letterkenny with a fair bit left of charge.

Im sure it will be fine but just looking for peoples real time charging experiences and the ESB NI and Eire

Thank you

LR AWD P- 2 adults not much luggage

 

[Glan gluaisne]

I'm also looking for a bit of real-world experience in Ireland. Planning a trip to see family in Longford, then heading down towards Limerick for a holiday, and a quick look shows a bit of a dearth of Superchargers in Ireland, in fact a dearth of CCS rapids AFAICS from a quick look at Zap Map. The area around Longford looks a bit like a charging desert, but we'll be able to use the granny lead for overnight charging OK. Looks like there is only one Supercharger down towards Limerick, on the M7, and that'll probably be the only one we can use. Just have to make sure we get on the ferry to Dublin on the way out with a reasonably full charge.

 

[BriamM3]

We are starved of superchargers in Ireland! None near Donegal. ESB have 2 types of chargers - type 2 are free to use & add about 70kms of range per hour. Fast chargers are charged at 29c per kWh

to my knowledge you will need an esb card, others won’t work. Other charging station providers are easygo.ie and Ionity (fast chargers). Again number of stations country wide isn’t great.

 

[mmca22gr]

No Superchargers in Northern Ireland at all - talk of one near Lisburn but I think that Castlebellingham covers the Belfast Dublin route adequately enough that it would be better to put one on the Belfast to Derry road - like Glenshane.

Better get an ESB card (ecars) as the fast chargers in Ireland (Republic) are no longer free. For those int he North they remain free AFAIK.
There is one CCS in Letterkenny for sure. and also a few Type 2 22Kw

main thing is to get the ESB card - I got the card for Scotland for my trips in the opposite direction

I would stick a few electrons in the car before you head up Glenshane pass as that will eat your range - but just think of the regen you will get on the way down again!

50kw CSS in Letterkenny will be handy but if you can charge at your parents then just keep it topped up for the run back to the ferry. Letterkenny to the boat is only 90 miles

 

[Torokruger]

We are starved of superchargers in Ireland! None near Donegal. ESB have 2 types of chargers - type 2 are free to use & add about 70kms of range per hour. Fast chargers are charged at 29c per kWh

to my knowledge you will need an esb card, others won’t work. Other charging station providers are easygo.ie and Ionity (fast chargers). Again number of stations country wide isn’t great.

No Superchargers in Northern Ireland at all - talk of one near Lisburn but I think that Castlebellingham covers the Belfast Dublin route adequately enough that it would be better to put one on the Belfast to Derry road - like Glenshane.

Better get an ESB card (ecars) as the fast chargers in Ireland (Republic) are no longer free. For those int he North they remain free AFAIK.
There is one CCS in Letterkenny for sure. and also a few Type 2 22Kw

main thing is to get the ESB card - I got the card for Scotland for my trips in the opposite direction

I would stick a few electrons in the car before you head up Glenshane pass as that will eat your range - but just think of the regen you will get on the way down again!

50kw CSS in Letterkenny will be handy but if you can charge at your parents then just keep it topped up for the run back to the ferry. Letterkenny to the boat is only 90 miles

Thank you both very much really informative yes Glenshane pass is well steep but apparently there is a 50kw near the bottom
Looking forward to the trip as Ive done it many a time with ICE cars but first time with the M3.

 

[mmca22gr]

Part of the problem with using the existing network in Ireland is that is is small and if you turn up at a charger you might well have to wait an hour if a Leaf or Zoe is charging.
I did plenty of runs to Dublin in a Leaf only to find the charger at Castlebellingham in use by some local Leaf driver getting a free charge. I sat waiting 45 mins to an hour while looking at a bank of 8 unoccupied Superchargers. Now I am one of those at the SuC

 

[curmudgeon]

I'm also looking for a bit of real-world experience in Ireland. Planning a trip to see family in Longford, then heading down towards Limerick for a holiday, and a quick look shows a bit of a dearth of Superchargers in Ireland, in fact a dearth of CCS rapids AFAICS from a quick look at Zap Map. The area around Longford looks a bit like a charging desert, but we'll be able to use the granny lead for overnight charging OK. Looks like there is only one Supercharger down towards Limerick, on the M7, and that'll probably be the only one we can use. Just have to make sure we get on the ferry to Dublin on the way out with a reasonably full charge.

If your'e setting off from Southern England then consider the Pembroke-Rosslare crossing to get to Ireland. I did that trip instead of the usual Dublin ferry over the new year and it worked out very well. From South Wales to Dublin is easy through Sarn services supercharger at Bridgend and then Gorey Ionity. The road is also good along the M4 to Pembroke while traffic on the Irish side is almost non-existent. North of Dublin to Belfast is easy because of the supercharger at Castle Bellingham that is always empty.


If you do take the Holyhead to Dublin ferry then Irish Ferries now provide a number of podpoints for AC charging onboard. Its only the slow boat, that is, the Ulysses and the Yeats. It needs to be added in at booking to secure a spot. Its a new service I haven't used yet so I don't know all the details. There may be a fee but at least you get 4 hours AC charging while you are onboard to arrive without any range anxiety.

ESB chargers all free in Northern Ireland. Take care that a lot of them are offline, and do not work. Check the status on the app, the grey chargers are offline and are no good. There is a free ESB rapid on the Shore Road heading North out of Belfast that works ok and I have used once but its often busy.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

Very many thanks, @curmudgeon , much appreciated. We've done the long haul up from Rosslare a few times, maybe 30 years or so ago, but prefer going via the Holyhead-Dublin route, mainly because it's a lot quicker to get across to Longford from Dublin. Travel time wise on the UK side, it's about an hour or so longer for us to get up to Holyhead, than it is to get across to Fishguard, but it saves at least an hour and half of travelling time once we're over.

Mind you, it's a few years since I've driven up from Rosslare now, and at the rate that the roads were improving things may well have changed (when I first started driving over to see the family there was a blanket 50mph speed limit in Ireland, and frankly few of the roads were good enough to go even that fast...).

Being able to charge on the ferry would be handy, it would mean not having to worry about charging in Dublin, we could easily top up with the granny lead when we get across to Longford. I doubt that we'll do much local driving when staying with family there, so really just need enough charge to get down to the Supercharger on the M7 at Birdhill, before we get down to Limerick, for a top up before the holiday bit. Not sure where we're staying around Limerick, yet, so we may get lucky and be able to destination charge.

 

[Torokruger]

Choose Stenna over P&O and they asked if the car was a full BEV when P&O didnt ? (Cairnryan Belfast)
I have signed up with ESB with a prepaid card and will put the app onto my phone, looking forward to it .

 

[curmudgeon]

Choose Stenna over P&O and they asked if the car was a full BEV when P&O didnt ? (Cairnryan Belfast)
I have signed up with ESB with a prepaid card and will put the app onto my phone, looking forward to it .

Meant to say in my earlier post that the free ESB CCS on the shore road is very close to the Stenna terminal on the outskirts of Belfast.

 

[NewbieT]

Jeremy, if you stick with Holyhead, the Genie point at Morrisons in Holyhead is pretty new. CCS 50kW. Cafe in Morrison’s is OK.

 

[mnobleuk]

I've used the charger on the Glenshane Road - it worked fine for me and nobody else was around.

An alternative to the shore road charger in Belfast is Applegreen services on the M2 northbound just outside the city. It's 50kW, probably less busy and you can grab a coffee and have somewhere to sit while charging.

As stated above you *will* need an ESB card and all chargers in NI are free but fast chargers in ROI are paid.

The reason that there are no supercharges in NI (and ESB don't charge) is that the legislation to allow payment for charging EVs hasn't been passed in NI yet (a "feature" of the fact we haven't had an Assembly for 3 years). This is good and bad - good that the ESB chargers are free, but bad as in you get what you pay for and 3rd party chargers such as Tesla superchargers Ionity etc. can't operate so we're stuck with slower less well maintained chargers.

 

[bitmanEV]

I have been driving with the LEAF in Ireland last year and the ferry crossing Rosslare - Pembroke even had an Pod Point on-board charger. I ordered an ESB-RFID card and used that without problems. Did found that I had to wait some times for a charge.
This year ESB changed to pay per kWh charging on their Rapids. As I was driving with the LEAF I have no experience with SC

Info ESB; ecars