Car charging network provider, EasyGo has formed a partnership with telecoms company, Eir to replace 180 telephone kiosks around the country with electric vehicle rapid charge points.
EasyGo claim that the DC Rapid Chargers, developed by Australia based plug and charge company, Tritium, will add 100 kilometres of range to an electric vehicle in less than 20 minutes.
"100 kilometres of charge would cost less than €5. The important thing for electric vehicle driving is that people can charge at home at the night rate, but they have the comfort of knowing that they can charge when they're out and about and return and not have that 'range anxiety'", Gerry Cash, Director of EasyGo explained.
'Range anxiety' refers to the 21st century phenomenon of a driver fearing that they will run out of power before getting to a charge point, exacerbated by the relative absence of charging infrastructure, particularly in rural areas.
"If you live rurally, you're not going to jump on a Luas or get on a bus at the bottom of the road. That's why it's important that, if we're going to transition for petrol or diesel to electric, you're going to have to be able to charge cars in rural locations," Mr Cash said.
Under its Climate Action Plan 2030, the government aims to have almost a million electric vehicles on Irish roads by the end of the decade.
Based on figures from the Department of Transport issued during the summer, there are currently only around 10,000 fully electric cars in the country, which amounts to less than 0.5% of the national fleet.
Locations of the first chargers to go live under this initiative will be announced after consultation with local authorities.
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Gerry Cash said the idea of transforming phone boxes had come about given their locations around the country.
"We've a culture of going into towns and places of convenience. Typically, the locations of the phone boxes are in those types of places. And that's what we want to do - the make the experience of charging a car easy, comfortable and safe for people."
The move has been greeted with enthusiasm by Eir, which owns the vastly under-used phone kiosk sites around the country.
"Replacing our little-used legacy infrastructure with state-of-the-art Rapid Chargers will make the transition to electric vehicles a viable alternative for thousands of people across the country, further driving forward the decarbonisation of Ireland and helping to meet our climate targets," Carolan Lennon, CEO of Eir said.
EasyGo is a private car charging network serving corporate, public, and home charging clients with hardware and software charging solutions.
Its network is used by more than 7,000 Irish EV drivers that can find, use, and pay for charging at more than 1,200 charge-points around the country.
