How can Ionity improve charging queues and reliability?

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[@borama7845]

Blocking 1,4MW for only 4 charging points is just nuts.

[@LewisPlume]

Ionity should 100% change strategy to stalls > power. Even Alpitronics that can dual charge would be a better option than what they have currently. Having that much grid connection reserved for 4 chargers is nuts.

[@oleterje7209]

This is much more interesting than when you just sit in a parked car. Hope for more like this in the future.

[@elmacken]

As a small operator is Sweden with kempower hardware, another thing that support your thoughts in the videos is many customers are arriving with 40-70% SOC and can’t receive high power. In this EV community we all try to arrive with close to 0% for that speed. But normal customers don’t. So in reality cars charging fastest are those with flat curves and low peak. I was so surprised by this. /elmacken

[@reiniernn9071]

That is most easy to solve... I know at least 2 options. First: Pricing based on connect time...If you're slow charging becasue not empty enough you'll pay much more / KWH. And if you do not remove you're car at the end of charging you'll pay a lot for parking there. Solves 2 issues....People occupying a charge connector without really using and people charging only the top part of theit battery. Second: Stop automitcally charging any car at 80% battery. Refuse to charge higher than 80%. (And add some AC chargers , up to 22 KW (7KW one fase)...where anyone who wants to get more than those 80% can add some extra energy without blocking other cars from fast charging. Sometimes necessary if there is a long stint without charger to go (especially for mid range cars and short range cars)

[@abreitsma1864]

@@reiniernn9071 if there is one thing I hate it is charging for connection time, this means people are punished for having a slower charging car. Stopping charging at 80% when all stalls are full is a better solution. Another better solution would be to always charge a minimum of say 20 or 30 kW, even if the car kan take less, and display a warning telling that the ‘overcharge’ tariff is active.

[@elmacken]

This is the point with a solution like kempower, many outlets that all share the power, this means you can charge to 90 or 100% without blocking the power because there is probably a outlet available where all available power can be directed if needed.

[@reiniernn9071]

@@abreitsma1864 A nissan leaf 2011- 2013 (chademo) will not charge 50KW (as is told) but with the second fast charge on a day maybe 20KW...due to lack of battery management suitable for this car. In other words...with your solution those will always pay overtime. But I do not ask that people who are coming with slower charging cars should pay more....the connection tariff could be (and should be) dependent of the peak speed of that particular car. A car with a top speed 150KW should pay less/minute than a car with top speed 225 kw.

[@valtersvingolds5520]

@@reiniernn9071 just build more stalls, build more sites. the number of BEV cars will grow exponentially, and this small minded optimization bullshit impedes solving the real bottleneck problem.

[@angmoh69]

Being a member of the VW charging club, I use Ionity whenever I can due to pricing and speed. However, lately I have observed that the Ionity chargers seems to be malfunctioning at a higher and higher rate. I have come to expect that at least 25% of the stalls are unavailable whenever I arrive at a charging station. If Ionity wouldn't change their hardware as Bjørn proposes, at least they should start focusing on servicing their stations properly so that the few stalls they have actually work..

[@nmtb1972]

That's another "issue". When buying a car, you get good charging rates for one year with the car..I'm guessing this attracts many new owners to Ionity, generating ladestau on Ionity.

[@pawefiett2468]

Very interesting! Off course people will prefer to plug to 75kW and go pee or eat over waiting 15 minutes in the car and get 150kW from the first minute!

[@bjornlundgren1811]

Important topic and great video, thanks Björn! I also would like to see Ionity and all other providers giving some thought on organizing the queues if and when they still will occur. That will avoid conflicts and unnecassary discussions I think. Also there should be extra (parking) charges for any charging above 90% SOC as that makes no sense for any car.

[@rukasuara]

I don't know why exactly but I don't usually like car related videos shot inside a house using only photos. I know sometimes people need to do it but it's much more fitting and less claustrophobic to see the car and to be on the road. My 2 cents. Thank you for taking the time and effort to go outside even if it's just to talk about a topic you find interesting. There's always more to show if you go out.

[@rukasuara]

I mean for me even the Millenium Falcon studio is much better than a room

[@evdabbler]

Very timely video as the Ionity charging stations in France (and no doubt elsewhere) are seeing queues building up for the summer. I agree we need: a) simple, automated queuing system allocating slots based on arrival time, b) better handle on faults (low power, difficulties to start, etc...) c) more stalls or as you say, better distributed architecture. Taking a page from broadband networks, you can deliver the highest speeds to some users whilst serving good speeds to all others, on a shared infrastructure.

[@gregchristie2763]

Thanks Bjorn ... I love these longer videos.

[@Zedilt]

Clever in Denmark have changed most of their chargers to the Alpitronic Hypercharger. Instantly doubled all their amount of charging stalls.

[@davidbelecci6970]

It’s really surprising to me how difficult it seems for third party operators to run a reliable fast charge network, comparable to Tesla SuC. In my experience only FastNed (NL, BE, D, UK) comes close to this. And completely agree that all large scale fast chargers should change to dispensers from a centrally distributed power stack (like Tesla and Kempower), it’s by far the most efficient way to increase the troughput of a charge site, and so combat charging ques. It’s also the most fair way to divide available power resources among charging EV drivers. Even better, it’s total power should be easy to increase by upgrading the power stack and central chargers (when more cars support very high charging speed), as long as the dispenser can stay the same. The Hypercharges that can split their 75/87kW modules among users are second best (FastNed also uses these; they are up to 350kW).

[@davidoznl]

I was actually suprised how bad the charging infrastructure was in DK and S. In NL we are quite spoiled, having a Fastned station almost every 50 kilometers between each other.

[@johndoe1909]

it should be mentioned that ionity where never supposed to actually be an alternative. it was a stop gap measure to blunt the dieselgate scandal.once done it has served its purpose.

[@abreitsma1864]

I agree that a kempower like system sounds optimal. Kempower only needs to upgrade their system to 350 kW max and allow to prioritize power based on subscription level (so the Taycan owners always get the max available power for their expensive car). This should allow Ionity to deliver the service they appearantly want to provide for their stakeholders.

[@erwingiger9735]

Ionity is putting more Energy in expanding the network, but not in expanding the existing sites. I think that's the problem about Ionity.

[@borama7845]

In Germany Hyperchargers rule the market. The biggest operators EnBW and Aral (not Ionity) use those. They are extremely reliable. Subjectively (for my car) the handshake is significantly quicker than with Ionity-Tritium hardware.

[@pergoransson3397]

Björn, the white tritium cabinets is recitifiers, they rectifies to 900v DC. The tritium stalls is a DC/DC converter, they convert the power to the voltage that the car battery is. Tritium is a better solution than kempower as kempower has 40kw power stacks that cannot be shared, just swiched between the stalls. So there is limitations with kempower that dosent exsist in the tritium solution. Hypercharger has 75kw power stacks, same build up as kempower but with larger power modules.

[@MichaelEricMenk]

Quote: "empower has 40kw power stacks that cannot be shared" This is not correct, the two-channel 40 kW Kempower power module can send power to two different connectors. 20kW steps in allocations is in my opinion sufficient granularity for power sharing.

[@achim.t]

People on Ionity who charge to 100 % and still keep disappeared for another 5 to 10 minutes because they are having a cup of coffee, while there are 6 cars in the queue: THAT is the real problem! (Experienced multiple times last weekend in Germany. Taycan drivers the biggest assholes (naturally), followed directly by Enyaq drivers.)

[@guitarbackingtracks4386]

I’ve been using Ionity’s chargers since getting our first EV, they were a great deal, 8 euro for a charge. Hardly anyone using them (France/Germany) and I don’t remember a single faulty one. Earlier this year on an European trip I’d say at half the sites, at least one, if not two chargers were faulty. Each time I reported it to Ionity (I feel we should all do that so they have no excuse, apparently they don’t always know remotely when a charger is faulty) and I got increasingly more snotty responses from them, I regret taking a subscription as I’m bound for a year now. At one site in Spain I was only able to get 10kw, I called Ionity and was told “we know about the issue so it’s on free vend”, not much use to me on a long journey. They are ploughing on with more sites (according to their website) but don’t appear to be effectively maintaining their existing ones.

[@gordonf1997]

I was charging at the public charger at EONs headquarters in Malmö yesterday, they use VW produced 122kW chargers with built-in battery packs which are trickle charged during the day so don't need a high powered grid connection.

[@BerraLilltroll]

Is that really true? If you charge 5 cars in a row, you need 5 car batteries worth of energy stored. Or are they charging all the time in a smaller battery. The cycles on those batteries will cost more than the energy.

[@georgipetkov9080]

Ionity sucks. 6 stals in Istra (Croatia) and only one worked ... Few restarts and endless calls with their support - it didn't help

[@PlanetFrosty]

Looking forward to being in Norway this fall. My company is building fiber optic service and laying ships in Norway and US. We also have a new undersea electrical transmission. I look forward to seeing the EV situation in the frozen north.

[@icebox344]

In the uk, due to legislation, chargers have to accept contactless payments; I used to hate having to use an app each time I wanted to charge. I usually seek out ionity as they are newer and I find usually work. Cost isn’t an issue for me as I generally charge at home.

[@rhydlew]

Actually the legislation merely enforced "ad hoc" charging with no prior contract required. The reason we have almost all contactless payment card (for rapids but not for AC charging) is due to market forces

[@gordonf1997]

Part of the problem is lack of education about charging. I was waiting at Valberg this weekend and there were two Danish ID3s that charged to 100% whilst there were 4 cars queuing and numerous others drove away. Very frustrating to have to wait 😞

[@tomm5936]

Agree. I wish they did the same as Tesla, when location is busy it stops at 80%.

[@sergeibrin2691]

Sometimes one need more than 80 percent. It is legit to load more than 80 percent.

[@lucas7793]

@@tomm5936 Totally agree with you! I would even go further and always lock it to 80%. Most Ionity locations are within 100 km of the next, so most of todays vehicles can even skip one location with 80%.

[@sallerc]

Interesting video. Dynamic load sharing and more charging points at each site would indeed be a better solution (than just a few 350kW stalls)

[@lesbendo6363]

Makes sense. Power management.

[@timoliver8940]

There is a big issue over charger design for disabled and wheelchair using EV drivers - often the cable holster is too high, the screen/ card readers are too high and then there are “sleeping policemen” and bollards around the units that make access impossible. Currently (excuse the pun) there is a survey being carried out in the U.K. regarding accessibility to chargers for disabled and wheelchair using EV drivers in the hope that a standard can be arrived at for the design of chargers and the parking area around them. Even as an able bodied EV driver I have got to chargers where I could hardly get out of my car because the marked parking places are too narrow to open the car door without touching the side of the car charging in the slot next to me!

[@itsbilln2178]

If a battery can accept higher power but the charger limits power delivery below the advertised rate then the price paid needs to do automatically adjust. If the charging power is limited by the charger and not the car, and the limit the charger is imposing is less than the advertised maximum, then customers should pay proportionally less.

[@peterhemelaer4754]

Hi Björn, great video, and I’m amazed…. I’m living in the S-W of Spain, and in comparison to what you’re showing us in your 20 minute or so drive (not movie) is just amazing. How many stalls did you show us in the area ? I’m lucky if I find a couple of 50kW chargers over here. This is just ‘the desert’. Just came back from a 4600 Km trip with my ID3 up to Belgium, and the infrastructure in France/Belgium is way much better. I used Ionity a lot in France - in Spain I avoid them because they just don’t work. Dead. In France/Belgium they worked flawlessly. I think that’s one main item : chargers that just work. If they can be quick - let’s say 50 kWh chargers, than I’m already happy. They can be quicker ? Great, but as you mention, the charging speed tends to drop back to 48 KW speeds quite quickly. So I prefer to make a pitstop, have a coffee and a chat with colleague EV owners and enjoy it. Talking about ‘LadeStau’ : returning during the ‘black weekend’ with heavy traffic in FR and SP, you had even LadeStau at the ICE gasoline stations. And large ones ! Price : Ionity : ridiculous, even with a VW charge card I would pay 0,79 Euro/kWh, was it not for the Bonnet app that gave me the same stuff at 0,41 Euro/kWh… but that fun is over as they adapted their pricing starting August 1st. I must mention that I do charge at home, and so only use public charging when on travel, or trips that bring me further away from home. so I don’t need/want any subscription plan from Ionity. Somewhere between 0,4 and 0,6 would be acceptable, and is what I pay at the Spanish Wenea network, which has never ever given me any problem. And if there was one, they called me (…) to help out. I believe they also operate in the UK. Furthermore : it’s a jungle out there, a bunch of different apps, credit card details with I can’t remember how many companies (a French/Paris public charging network even places a 150 Euro hold on your card for EVERY charge - but fortunately that dissappears quickly), so that’s another huge Tesla advantage : ‘plug and play’. Which then would cost 79 cents with Ionity. A lot of work that needs to be done. And the ID3 Software/navigation system that’s only showing you something like 5% of chargers on your route, and even doesn’t guide you to it. Anyway, I could go on rattling for a while - great video - put the pressure on those charging networks. P.S. : can anyone tell me why EV charging stations almost never have a shade placed above it ? And for ECI fuel stations that’s the standard ? Very nice sitting in your car in full sun when it’s +4O°C outside….yes I know, turn up the airco….and loose juice from the charger…

[@markeaton6734]

I'd rather see 10 chargers able to support 100kw when all busy than just a couple that can support 350kw

[@moestrei]

Tritium is an Australian manufacturer and pretty much all DC chargers here in Straya are Tritium. I drive 30.000km per year and find many DC chargers to be defect and it takes sometimes months to repair them (we mostly have 1 charger per site). I could only complete my trips because my old Model S can charge 22kW AC or use the Tesla network (for free). Very sad that Tritium cannot get their act together.

[@LoneWolf-wp9dn]

in romania we have some supermarkets that offer a couple of free charging plugs and of course they are getting swamped by all sorts of cheap people, uber people, dacia spring people... so much so they took down some of them and restricted others... its gonna get worse before it gets better

[@pete9b]

Very interesting video Blørn, thanks for sharing!..

[@jadziadax8658]

I think you're completely correct. If you crunch the number a bit: Imagine you have 20 Ionity stalls, and you have an i4 (as an example vehicle) arriving every 60 seconds and then charging from 10-65% (that's 20 minutes), you have an average charge rate over all stalls of less than 150kW (and the i4 is by no means a slow-charging vehicle). That also assumes that as soon as one car is done, it is immediately replaced by a new vehicle. So for me that means that with 2.1MW of transformer power you can very easily supply 14 charge points without ever running into issues. Unless there's some kind of Taycan-race going on where every driver decides to take a pit stop in the exactly the same lap....

[@bjornnyland]

The problem is that in most cases, people don't charge to just 65 %. I have seen over and over again that people tend to charge to 80-100 % even during ladestau. That's why the average power is way lower than 150 kW.

[@jadziadax8658]

@@bjornnyland Correct, I was merely drawing a worst case scenario :)

[@ojeskog]

@@bjornnylandThink of it like panic buying. I better charge full now when I can as I can see there are massive queues so better top up full now... Its the way the human mind works.

[@BHBeckenbauer]

My local IONITY station has just 4 chargers. One is always broken, the rest are constantly in use with a queue. There isn’t another one for about 60 miles

[@DrCP-wc8xl]

Thank you for the video, I also found on many Ionity charging station 2 of 4 stalls broken for many weeks and the 2 functioning occupied for longer then 30 minutes by slow charging vehicles to 100%. This is wrong strategy on both sides.

[@TheLikeagee6]

You are complete right Ionity and other Operator they must now Invest a lot of money in the charginginfrastructure to expand. But they slows things down for no reason. They should look for more stalls at 175kw instead a few with 350kw. Its idiotic to not use the reserved power from 6x350kw they can use inteligent power steering for 12x175kw or 150kw that would be alot better for the EV community. Lg

[@reiniernn9071]

Rerliability is mega important. A few weeks ago I was charging at ionity ner Lodz (Poland) and when I came back the moment my car should be ready someone was waiting for my station. The (only) other station did not work on their car....(coming from Norway). However...om my road back to the Netherlands I was at the station in Slubice, also 2 station, nearly at the same moment someone with a near identical car was also entering there. We both could pull the full 225 KW (ioniq 5) which our cars can take.....so yes..IF it works ionity can deliver full power on the stations. Also I've noticed that one charging station at Raststatte Fichtenplan (sus), Berliner ring) does not accepts connection with my car...already more than once...another station (4 available) does works fine. Fortunate noone else was charging there...so no problem to switch to the other station. Also I noticed that I need to keep the charging cable in place until it is fully locked....in other words , my wife must hold th chargepass in front of the rfid reader.

[@knightjocke]

On a charging station people come and go at different times. An EV is usually able to pull most of it's energy at the beginning of the charging-session. If you have 6 150kw stations that is not sharing it's energy between each other there's a lot of unused energy. Rather than a 900kw kempower station with 12 or 16 stalls, and people would not notice as all the cars don't arrive at the same time with low SOC. Some cars cold/rapidgate and some might limit their DC-charging curve to preserve battery life-span (a feature for the future, there's no need to charge that quick if you want to have a relaxing lunch)

[@gordonf1997]

150kW is enough for most people. If you can afford a Taycan you can afford to pay a premium for 350kW charging capability, so maybe have two tier pricing model?

[@44Bigs]

I’m happy to drive a Tesla in Europe and not going to switch to another EV soon! Supercharger stations aren’t always super conveniently located but they make up for it in stall count and experience (ease of use, but also pushing people out with 80% limit and idle fees).

[@desmoheli]

You have realized, that most SuC are open now to all EV, right? They are not an argument for a Tesla car anymore.

[@erwingiger9735]

@@desmoheli there are still a lot of Superchargers where only Tesla's can charge. So it's still better to drive a Tesla.

[@itsbilln2178]

My concern with the way power distribution seems to work currently is surrounding the fact that when you first plug in, decide to use that charger and pay the specified price, you have been advertised, for example, 150kW - but then you can actually end up being served less than 150kW for a portion of time. So I think there perhaps could be better information provided to drivers on the potential for the advertised rate to drop, and also possibly a pricing system where the price paid per kWh reduces proportionally if the power able to be served by the charger reduces below the advertised maximum (when your car could still be accepting a higher rate).

[@elmacken]

Kempower charger adjust the correct max output power on the display in real time depending on the load in that moment.

[@b127_1]

The alternative is waiting in queue. Is that better? Ionity probably would have zero queues if they used a shared system like tesla or kempower.

[@PuNicAdbo]

29:16 just go with EnBW they are everywhere. Netherland, Luxembourg, Belgium, France, Italy, Germany, Croatia, Czech, Poland, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden but not for you in Norway hahah

[@jaken005]

A 4 stall ionity station has 1400 kW of inverter and grid connection. If a car uses on avrage say 75 - 100 kW only like 30 % of the power is used. With only 2x600 kW you could get a 2x8 kempower stalls so you can charge 4x the amount of cars with the same power and inverter. Even the ability to split a stall in 2 like on Alpitronic or Delta would double the effechency (ex 4x300 kW alpitronic that can be split to 8x150 kW)

[@ericvet8b]

I agree… I have been saying this for months… IONITY is slacking… struggling to keep service guarantee as too many broken and taking too long to repair… And not proofed for future when the future is already here not suitable… too few stalls per sites, some broken, and too slow at new sites/installs!! I’m sure that IONITY is getting some breathing space due to Tesla opening network… Come on IONITY… get a grip, install more stalls and I agree that 99% of times we won’t need 350kW per stall…. Even if 175kw?

[@mbalunovic]

on all charges I used across Europe on a 6000km road trip in Model S, where there was Ionity, there was ALWAYS at least one car (VAG most often) that couldn't charge... one VW Golf struggled also with Tesla app to authenticate his bank card as weak phone signal so I helped him with my app to initiate his charging session... for VAG heavily invested in Ionity and they cant use they own....

[@ianrobins5501]

Kempower do have 800v charging posts running in NL at a service station recorded by electricfelix kzbin.info/www/bejne/rmSahKyXZrOKlac he was comparing 500v post to a 800v upto 240kw post using an ioniq 5 .

[@johnl.7582]

In my experience, Ionity in Ireland (where I live) is incredibly reliable and with a subscription it's sanely priced (0.35 EUR/kWh IIRC) and I use it far more often than Tesla superchargers, but in the UK (where I visited a couple of weeks ago) Ionity is unreliable garbage. I cannot explain these local variations.

[@vincentohanlon]

As a Tesla owner in Ireland, it makes no sense for me to pay for the Ionity subscription, and Ionity is €.71/kw without it. That's just crazy prices compared to Tesla at €.39/kw. I see very few Ionity chargers being used in Ireland and I suspect their pricing model is the reason. Maybe if/when Tesla open their network to other brands in Ireland it will force Ionity to reduce their price.

[@johnl.7582]

@@vincentohanlon there are no superchargers along my regular routes, and the car does 40k km a year, so Ionity gets used several times a week. With that usage the subscription makes sense. If I had the choice I would use Tesla SCs. Regardless, the point was more about reliability - in the UK Ionity seems terrible. Is reliability a function of usage? Dunno.

[@sylvainjamais904]

Some of the Ionity sites I visit when crossing France don't even seem to have room to add more chargers and I've seen a significant increase in EV traffic and experienced my first proper stau on my last trip where traffic wasn't that crazy, got me a bit worried for the next holiday. I agree they don't seem to be expanding fast enough, or not in the right way, e.g. opening brand new sites rather than upgrading existing ones. Sharing to be able to plug sooner definitely gets my vote, of course I only drive a Niro, but I'd rather plug at the available 50 kW than having to queue 30 minutes for a faster spot. Another observation for some of the new Ionity sites I have seen appear is that they are not on the motorway network, so while it is great that they are more accessible to say people coming to do their weekly shopping, I fear it is going to create charger hogging. FInal thought, is that there is an opportunity in smarter route planning, provided there are enough chargers of course, if route planners pooled all their route data, they would be able to know where people are planning to charge and actively redirect drivers to spread the load. That can't be a 100% solution of course, not everyone uses a planner (probably 90% though?) and not everybody will conform to the re routing, etc. but worth exploring I think. Sorry for the long comment, but a thought provoking video, thanks Bjorn.

[@LostInIce4]

Too many people trying to use Ionity without having registered and wasting much time downloading app and registering while occupying the stall. 🥶 Ionity has been flawless for me during my European road trip!

[@febrianadji5758]

Have 2 dedicated 350kw charger And 2 modules of 4 'dispenser' sharing 500kw each would be great on crowded highway

[@rzvqvb]

I was a bit hesitant about the length of the video, but the information was very interesting and well worth the time. Ionity clearly should adopt a more dynamic power distribution, which should improve throughput of cars on their sites. Design I don't care, but the 360° lights on top indicating status is clearly helpful.

[@MichaelDoran23]

Love how you think its a joke if a station only had one 50kw charger. Welcome to Ireland. We're lucky if some of our biggest towns have one 50kw charger let alone 150 or even 350kw. We have alot to catch up on.

[@gregchristie2763]

I believe the cost of installing a Tesla charger is around one-fifth of others.. maybe that's why it's easier for Tesla to install more.

[@sturlasjavik3312]

Of course I agree concerning the Ionity charging network. Recharce have understand it starting with a lot of Kempower chargers with a lot of stalls. But Ionity want a lot of subscribers and the colaboration with brands like EV6 and Ioniq 5 has lead to that they refuse to cooperate with Tesla superchargers and don't want these cars to use the V3 chargers 😕

[@bayliner4387]

Very informative, Also the charger companies need to be criticized or they wont keep up. Thanks

[@PierreSimonsson]

Ionity need either More Stalls or Branding down some stalls to 150 and/or change price modell. now to cheap for those with deals. Set up a sign if que, there are chargers availeble there and there.

[@bjrnutgard7271]

Great video! Just keep in mind that using the statistics from (Kempower) chargers in Norway isn't that relevant since the fleet of EVs on the road has a uniquely large share of cars limited to less than 100kW of peak charge rate due to Norway's pioneering role in EV deployment. When it comes to power share, even Ionity with their current technology can share power between multiple stalls on one site, even if their technology specification does lead to more power converters being required than e.g. a Kempower site would require. My impression is Ionity's focused on guaranteeing high power without sharing to justify higher prices.

[@MichaelEricMenk]

I have argued this for several years. Not all locations are equal, some location have power limitation, but has a lot of space. Other locations have good power connection, but parking space is at a premium. All location do not need to have the same average power. Some location may have down to 40kW of average power available, but a lot of stalls. But you do not need kempower to do this. The traditional ABB 50kW chargers supports smart grid with power shaving. If you have 4 stalls (2x50kW DC + 2x22kW AC) with two ABB Terra 54 ( as seen at 19:14 ). You can now add a ABB Terra 94 (90kW DC). The charges communicate and makes sure that they do not use more than 145kW from the grid, and you still use 4 stalls and 145kW from the grid. But you have added flexibility and you are continuing to use old hardware. This may not only increase the capacity of the site without needing a grid connections upgrade, but in Norway the connection fee is calculated by the hour of max average power usage (kWh/h). In the west of Norway this is 63.30 NOK/kW if you are connected to the 11kV network. Adding a extra 90kW charger will cost up to around 5700 NOK/month, or around 68k NOK ( $7000 ) a year. This extra cost is a problem on locations with primary weekend traffic. By load sharing between the stalls, this cost is not passed passed down to the consumers... I'm using a small location as an example to show this may benefit multiple locations. The nearest charge station to my work has 32 DC connectors, 11 of them are 50kW. The nearest to my home has 2x50kW DC + 2x22kW AC. Peak shaving can be used on all locations to increase capacity without increasing the grid connection. A other point is that not all vehicles have high power usage. A motorbike will never charge at 350kW, but they need a charge.. A flexible charging system utilize the available power in a more efficient way. As I have stated for several years: It's better to be in a charging queue connected to the charger than standing in line in your car.

[@ralfyway]

Ionity is learning. They run tests with different hardware from different provider to check failure quotes in real use. In Germany Ionity is very stable und much better located as superchargers. But I agree, the number of stalls should be doubled, sharing the output. Only large chargingareas with plenty of stalls will be the future.

[@e-herm2726]

I don't want to be in the locations of a gas station better is the quiet area of ​​the superchargers👍😁

[@ralfyway]

@@e-herm2726 for you the quiet place is the best, for me the fastest; we will never block each other

[@e-herm2726]

@@ralfyway yes quiet+fast😁🍀

[@e-herm2726]

@@ralfyway kzbin.info/www/bejne/hZ-7lHeEq9eYjpY To few chargers🤷‍♂️ they have to update now.

[@tommesob5099]

I had this on a 1400KM Road Trip this week. at least 1 of 4 Chargers was kaputt. And also Charging Queues were a big issue. My longest wait was nearly an hour. On the way back i switched to using Super Chargers, but there i had some issues with Handshakes on my Enyaq sometimes..

[@markgeezey1809]

Hi Björn, I totally agree on what you’re saying and obviously the deal that a lot of manufacturers are doing with Ionity means that more and more cars want to use them🤷🏻‍♂️. Myself i own a Kia EV6 and on that special 12 month deal. One thing I will say and is based on my experience since owning the EV6 for a few weeks is that the rate of charge is fantastic and quite level at a high rate. From 13% soc to 87% soc i had been getting 235kw to 165kw during the 16mins I charged. Only then did it go down to 87kw and I decided out of curtesy to free up a charger albeit not busy at that time. “ learning from the Ninja🤣”. But for me in summer it is great that I have the ability to charge at that level regular and it means not taking up the stall for that long. Unlike the Polestar 2 who was next to me. So I understand what you are saying but it can swing the other way in not blocking up stalls for cars that can charge faster. I think once Tesla opens up all the Superchargers then it will make a huge difference. But something needs to be done and the down time of chargers not working is unacceptable in this day and age. Plus you are spot on about the scaling up and ionity’s responsibility even if means dropping it to 150kw but much more charging stations🤔🤔. Great vid though🙌

[@iangardner2311]

Multiple working chargers better than one fast charger. Getting 240 on my EV6 is nice, but queues suck.

[@mzitpartille]

Will you do a Sunday drive with the EV6? :)

[@alistairl]

Do all networks fall off a reliability cliff after a few years ? It seems great to mention new networks and kit as better but the picture locally in the UK seems that obsolescence and unreliability is a matter of a year or two. Where I am it seems like there are an equal number of Porsche charging locations as Ionity, which is rather confusing!

[@alanperkins9336]

Great video, I guess as consumers we just want to have flexibility and reliability when we want to charge on the road. It’s nice to have an option of high speed chargers but not always necessary. In the U.K. space is a premium so it’s difficult for charging companies to buy into the infrastructure when we are still at an early adoption percentage. I can understand why ionity hasn’t beefed up their infrastructure like Tesla as they do not produce care to look after. It feels like they are dipping their toes in for the moment.

[@erwingiger9735]

How about Tesla's V3 Chargers, don't they share Power to 4 Stalls, whereas V2 Tesla shares to only 2 Stalls?

[@giogios75]

I would rather see more chargers on a site with load sharing being available on site, with temporary throttling (appreciating we all may pay the same) being in place so that if a faster charging car (E.g. Taycan) arrives, then for the limited time that specific car’s curve requires higher power, that would be given./re-directed. The effect would be barely felt to the other users. Even if the average EV fleet charging curve increases, then the throttling gap would decrease, hence its impact disappearing.

[@pete9b]

Very interesting video Bjørn, thanks for sharing!..

[@ekinorak]

Is there any statistics on how a normal ev-driver use fast chargers? Would be cool to see what the avrage SoC people have when starting and ending their charging session. I have a feeling people still are not used to ev's and have some range anxiety. High powered chargers is nice for low SoC ninjas.

[@pawefiett2468]

I've always felt like the design og chargers was very important for Ionity! And it most likely is. Simple, all identical, white - feels premium!

[@itsbilln2178]

There’s nothing premium about waiting in a queue for 20+ minutes in your €200k Taycan!

[@bobo-san]

more and more Teslas avoid to use their own Supercharger because of high price, the swap to Ionity or Allego etc.; Ionity should replace the old chargers with only one plug to something like Alpetronic e.g. with 2 plugs at one charger. I agree that more and more EVs are on the roads... the charging network must being improved

[@wasd713]

Thanks, your uploads like daily free only fans which is heal my soul

[@GarethMcCumskey]

Here in Portugal Ionity only put in 2 at a time even with 6+ parking spots marked for charging

[@scollyutube]

It's even worse I my country where we have a 50kw charging network. It's not worth taking an EV on longer trips. I don't want to take an extra 20% to get anywhere and that's if the charger works or isn't busy. This problem was always only ever going to get worse when more are forced into EVs. With a Cupra Formentor VZ costing only 2/3rds the price of my Polestar DM, EVs don't really make sense price wise, performance or practibility wise here really, I.e just for fans.

[@lucas7793]

I'm not sure about Kempower they are nice, but it seems like they are struggling in summer with high temperatures since they don't have watercooled cables. Same problem with hyperchargers and the non watercooled cables (same cables as Kempower). If they have some other units with watercooled cables, they might be more interesting for them. I think Ionity should have gone the same way as Electrify America, some 350 kW but most should be 150 kW. ABB and Tritium chargers they can run either on one or two 175 kW charger stacks. They should prepare the stalls for all with 350 kW, but should start with 175 kW and double the number of user units. Ekoenergetyka seems to be the new hardware supplier for Ionity. Also they are removing all Porsche chargers (only one site in Germany left, Nempitz) from their network. I think you are right with the ABB chargers, it seems to me some guys from ABB went to their storage and got some stuff and built a charger. At least with the old versions, ABB Terra 360 seem to be more state-of-the-art. Just look at it, the 350 kW ABB needs two huge power racks, the ABB Terra 360 is even smaller than one power rack and delivers more power than these old things. Regarding hypercharger, due to the German network specifications (Deutschlandnetz) they are now building a new HYC400 which can deliver up to 200 kW on both connectors at the same time. Maybe with this they also move to smaller power modules, since they introduced the HYC50 which has two 25 kW modules. The "old" Delta Ultra Fast charger (150 kW) charger are by default only 400V based, the newer Delta UFC 200 are up to 920/1000V by default. Mer also uses hypercharger on the latest installs (Lofotsenteret). Ionity uses ABB in Austria, France, Switzerland, Spain, Croatia, Hungary, Ireland, Portugal, Slovenia and Slovakia. Some in the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands are also from ABB. The rest of the Ionity-countries are using Tritium chargers. Renault also has now access to Ionity with Mobilize Charge Pass. I also agree with your statement that Ionity is too slow. When they first opened their stations they were huge for non Tesla Standard, but I'm a little bit concerned that they still build sites with four stalls. They still have even sites with only two chargers, which is pretty bad. Also I get their approach that they want to have their chargers all look the same, but to be honest: I don't really care how the chargers look like, if there are enough stalls and they are working, I'm fine.

[@bjornnyland]

As mentioned in the video, Kempower now has watercooled cables.

[@lucas7793]

@@bjornnyland Ah okay, must have missed that. Also didn't find it in the datasheet, but I've seen now there is one picture where it is mentioned on the product page.

[@Jeggo65]

You are right Björn, that the Ionity charges belong a little bit to chicken egg problem. But first of all Ionity wants to make money with their charges. Why should they expand the number of charging points if only a few week ends every year there is "Ladestau"? The rest of the time it is more or less empty. I also would doubt, that a lot of private users will continue there Ionity subscribtion after the first year. Most of us (including me) would only need Ionity charges once or twice a year for a holiday. I would use a reduced charging speed (max 100kW) on a holiday trip. I am on holiday and not on the run. And it will also be better for the battery.

[@perjottosson]

Charged at Elverum and Rygge yesterday with my P2, no way 350 per stall will be needed within 10 years. Laws of physics, no way cars will charge over 175kw over 60% for anytime soon. Ionity should use the 350kw capacity per stall to use x2 stall, the expensive stuff is in the high voltage hut, not at the stall.

[@robertklasson5456]

Ionity should definately go at least some stalls with shared power at each site. Current generation Kempower is a bit underpowered since they top out at 200 kw according to the datasheets available at their website. If Alpitronics does not meet the visual profile of Ionity, there is always ABB which Ionity already uses at some sites which also has high power chargers with dynamic sharing options.

[@tommimakitalo3675]

I just fully agree with you. Ionity used to be great. Nowadays they have not kept up with the demand. Also I frequently see broken Ionity chargers. I've seen your Videos about Kempower. They do it right. Sharing between many stalls is good for all. With the same transformator they can serve maybe 12 stalls instead of 6 without any downside for users. And I prefer to plug in my car and go for a coffee even when the charging speed is not so good instead of waiting in the queue for the best stall. Even when the actual charging may take longer. On Monday we start from here near Frankfurt/M towards the north and my plan is to charge at Ionity, but when I watch the Ionity occupation (in Harz Ost) it has one broken charger and 3 frequently occupied. Why Ionity is not able even to repair the existing ones?

[@CraftyStorm]

That ionity location in Denmark has now those new tritium chargers. This summer I had a bit too much ladestau at ionity, this is one of the reasons I don't continue the VW ionity deal.

[@JammyP100]

I live in the UK and just came back from a 3000 mile road trip across Europe in my model 3. The Tesla network is still by far the best (I owned a model s around 5 years ago but went back to ICE temporarily) I tried to charge at some IONITY along the route but they were always full / broken. Kempower chargers seem like the best solution outside of Tesla I have seen. Modularity is going to be the key to making EV ownership work.

[@e94mli]

You can load balance on the AC side as well. Then it is a matter of cost for the chargers with redundant AC to DC capacity.

[@gregchristie2763]

Clearly it must be better to have a central multi-megawatt transformer rectifier converting AC to DC and then dispensers ( as u called them Bjorn) each dispenser could 500kw max .. It will then only dispense the wattage amount as the vehicle demands.. leaving absolutely no waste in the overall system to dispense. Also easier for the operating company to measure the total amounts of MW being used and then see if they need to put another transformer rectifier in, or more dispensers, whichever way it needs to be. So to simply it would dispense the amounts to each vehicles demand up to the maximum of the transformer rectifier therefore no wasted at all. If dispensers are always being occupied put in more dispensers only.. and only upgrade or a transformers rectifier as necessary as total demand increases. Simples !!

[@richardgoldsmith7278]

KemPower clearly have the better strategy. With the scalability they have, the future proof argument of Ionity goes away. Let’s use what we got now! (More stalls).

[@michaelpries960]

Hi Bjørn Already happened in Rødekro, 4 stalls of the new design there... Regards from Denmark

[@ikocheratcr]

A charger proiveder that still wants to use non shared chargers, can still share the high voltage transformer power, they just coordinate how much each at the location can pull. Not the best case, but an option.

[@pekkis924]

Is Finland becoming charging heaven with so many Kempower sites? Only 3 Ionity sites now with 2 chargers each only

[@linieus]

ionity has the same mentality as electrify America

[@Scrap-press]

It's going to be interesting to see how the infrastructure will hold up with the s3xy meet in Hannover.

[@markushetzmannseder7748]

Is there any knowlege how IONITY chargers are working? do they have just simple added up max power for there connection to the power grid? Or do they have a lower grid connection and would reduce the power if the grid connection would get overloaded?

[@LewisPlume]

That last Ionity site with 6 stalls but provision for 12 is a good example. With the Hypercharger, the same amount of physical hardware as current could have supplied the entire 12 stall site. This would surely save Ionity money.

[@Sank1982]

IONITY in the UK are done falling way behind the other companies 4 x chargers at Gretna Green main route from Scotland to England 4 CHARGERS WTF for weeks only 3 working 🤷‍♂️ most only have MAX x 6 chargers. NO CHARGERS IN BIRMINGHAM second biggest city in the UK Gridserve installing 12 x 150kw at motorway services ( exactly where you want them ) IONITY put the chargers miles off the main routes by the time you get to them you’re better paying a higher price and getting something closer to your route. The company is an absolute joke at a time FastNed installing 12 x 150kw and 8 x 350kw MFG installing 10 x 350kw we need more and more 150kw pointless having 4 x 350kw and 6 cars queueing by the time the 6th car gets to charge you would’ve spent less time on 150kw. Install as many 150kw as possible this will reduce queueing and everyone can charge no matter what the car can handle.

[@marcgirard7551]

This video was awesome. Great conversation and pod cast and I learned something’s and laughed out loud too.

[@Zedus-rl9hp]

I consider Ionity's strategy to be unsuitable for the mass market and particularly unsuitable for the start of e-mobility. For the one unique selling point (always 350kW), a lot of unnecessary things are accepted, such as the very high hardware costs, but also the connection to the power grid costs a lot more, so that 99.9999% of the time it's never an advantage. In my eyes a pure prestige project, which partially failed. Starting with the charging power of the Taycan, which was once advertised as 300kW+, a noticeable number of failed charging points and the tough expansion

[@frankblok1743]

I like to report about Spain. Spain is a big country in Europe , visited by 10th of million tourists each year. But they only have 18 Ionity locations, some of them with only 2 chargers. There are a further 6 under construction. It’s a horrible situation, and they are hardly improving it. Between Barcelona and Benidorm runs the most important A7. However there is no charger available for more than 500 km’s! And that’s not a joke. It’s better to go to Iberdrola or Wenea, these guys do invest a lot of money, and there network is improving very rapidly. Shame on Ionity in Spain!

[@peterasp3939]

Liked this format! Sharing the stalls as it is now must be the best, like tesla v2 chargers.

[@jhdalvik]

Having distributed changes _can_ also lead to more stalls out of order. At Shell Klett (great station btw) early this summer, half of the Kempower stalls where out of order at the same time, probably because the central changer unit was broken. But I totally agree that we need many more stalls at charging locations, and they need to be very reliable. The number of locations has become acceptable, but most locations still has only one or two stalls! Luckily Tesla opened up their network, so during this summer's 4000km trip, I charged there as often as I could, knowing that they always have at least six stalls, and instant availability almost guaranteed.

[@PlanetFrosty]

@TeslaBjörn I like this video very much, very informative. It’s helpful as we’ll be in various locations in Europe of fiber optic and power transmission.

[@felixrohde2734]

I think Ionity should use Kempower chargers since they seem to be the most flexible solution. A mix of different power chargers would make it inconvenient to use Ionity especially for non-ninjas.

[@richardgoldsmith7278]

It is clear that dealers still provide no education to new owners on how to select the best charger for their vehicle and which does what. Maybe they select on price alone given no advanced information and many will never learn beyond that.

[@moestrei]

Those 350kW chargers are nuts. With a fossil you have to stay with the car when 'charging' so you want that to be quick. But when charging an EV you walk away and do something like shopping or having a meal. You need typically 30-40 mins for that. So anything charging faster means you have to interrupt your activity to move the car. As discussed previously on this channel 800V is an overrated hype also. Sensible are a number of 100-150kW chargers. Also when there are say 4 chargers with 2 cables each only one of them should have a ChaDeMo connector and all the others CCS. Or CCS only and give the Chademo cars an adapter or conversion kit. In malls 22kW AC or 25kW DC chargers are sufficient, but as many as possible. In general: A world wide bi-directional DC only standart is what we really need, currently the EV charging scenario is N.U.T.S.

[@rhydlew]

They made the fake engine noise sound like a fossil engine in a really high gear