ESB eCars recently communicated (7th of June) that there was a “Change to Minimum Account Balance Required to start a charge” that went out through their own communications channels. However, this has been missed by many members, easily done with the amount of information that goes around!
We reached out to eCars to clarify the reasoning for this change as members had communicated that they did not understand the reasoning for the change to have a €20 minimum balance, and to highlight that it had caused confusion to individuals using the network and that a number of people were caught without being able to charge due to this change since it was implemented. ESB eCars have come back with the following information to clarify their reasoning behind this change and steps to follow to prevent this issue. Please take the time to follow the information as below if you are an ESB eCars user and update your account accordingly.
ESB ecars has amended its minimum account balance required to start a charge for all PAYG customers and those who signed up for a Membership plan from 15th June. This is in response to a number of changes in customer charging behaviour, increases in EV battery size and the increase in energy costs. We have seen an increase in the number of customers accumulating debt on their account due to the previous minimum balance being too low to cover their cost of charge and we wanted to put this measure in place to help customers manage their costs more effectively.
The revised minimum balance of €20 is being applied to cover the cost of an average transaction on an EV charger and provision for a potential overstay fee.
As a consequence, some drivers have been experiencing difficulties starting a charge on our network.
To avoid this from occurring, please verify that your account balance is at least €20. To ensure seamless charging going forward, we also recommend that you activate the automatic top-up feature, to automatically add at least €20 when the balance is less than €20. These settings can be found on the account section by logging in your ‘ecar connect’ app or at https://myaccount.esbecars.com