directhex's handy guide to EV chargers and charging

[directhex]

Hello. Since I'm trying to spread a bit of EV love in the forums, I thought I'd try to disambiguate the total ****ing mess that is the kind of chargers you might encounter in the wild.

If nothing else, it's a chance for you petrolheads to laugh!

Speeds

The official classifications for chargers are "slow", "fast", and "rapid". These classifications are basically useless, because they don't map into what cars can take, or what chargers provide.

The real things you'll encounter in the wild are:

• Domestic power, ie 230V 13A AC - 3kW peak (your car will come with an adapter for this)
• Dedicated EV charger, 230V 16A AC - 3.7kW peak (anything, with the right plug)
• Dedicated EV charger, 230V 32A AC - 7.4kW peak (anything, with the right plug)
• Dedicated EV charger, 415V 3-phase 32A AC - 22kW peak (I have no ****ing idea which cars can use this, other than the Zoe)
• Dedicated EV charger, 415V 3-phase 63A AC - 43kW peak (basically just the Renault Zoe)
• Dedicated EV charger, 400V 125A DC - 50kW peak (Any really recent EV should support DC charging. i3, Soul EV, Leaf, whatever)
• Tesla Supercharger - 120kW peak (Tesla tesla tesla money money money)

The numbers are in theory quite simple - if your car has a 21kWh battery, work out how many hours it needs to be plugged in to fill up from the above. Bear in mind that with Li-Ion batteries, the first 80% charges much faster than the last 20%, so most sources discuss charging "80% in 20 minutes" and just assume you won't charge to 100% full from any kind of fast charger

Plugs

If you go to a site, you might encounter a tethered cable with a plug on the end. There are 5 plugs you might encounter in the UK. With one minor exception, you can't turn a tethered plug into another type of plug - if you roll up and find only a plug your car doesn't have, you're boned.

• "Type 1" J1772. This is a 5-pin plug, usually with either "230V 16A AC" or "230V 32A AC" in it. Asian-made or US-made cars are likely to accept J1772.
• "Type 2" Mennekes. This is a 7-pin plug, usually with either "230V 16A AC", "230V 32A AC", "415V 3-phase 32A AC" or "415V 3-phase 63A AC" in it. European-made cars are likely to accept Mennekes
• CHAdeMO. This is a 4-pin plug with "400V 125A DC" in it. Newer Asian or American cars should do CHAdeMO
• CCS. This is a 2-pin extension on top of Mennekes, with "400V 125A DC" in it. Newer European cars should do CCS.
• Tesla. This is a modified version of Type 2 Mennekes, with ultra-high-speed DC power transfer. It's found on, well, Teslas. Note that the Tesla connector I mention here is different from the connector used on American-market Teslas.

Recent cars which support rapid (>=23kW) charging tend to have support for both low and high speed connectors - on Asian or American, that means J1772 and CHAdeMO. For European that means Mennekes with the extra pins for CCS. For Tesla that means, well, Tesla's special version of Mennekes.

Sockets

• BS1363 UK plug socket - this is the lowest common denominator. You might use this at home if you lack a dedicated charger. You might find it at small site installations (e.g. Oxford's park & rides, and A34 Little Chef, have BS1363 sockets)
• Mennekes - The "universal" plug, for people who want to hedge their bets. If your car takes Mennekes, you have a Mennekes-to-Mennekes cable in the boot. If your car takes J1772, you have a J1772-to-Mennekes cable in the boot.
• Caravan park connectors - "commando". There are a bunch of different commando plug specs, commonly found on caravan park sites. You can convert these to BS1363, then charge your EV!

Charge station operators

Some chargers are free. Some aren't. Either way, they're locked. You need an RFID card to access the network which operates the charger you want to use, to turn the charger on. Ecotricity points are free (service stations and IKEA). Pod Point has a 1-off fee of about 12 quid (Chiltern Railways car parks, Oxford Park & Ride). ChargeMaster has a mobile phone contract style system - either PAYG or a monthly fee with some inclusive minutes, but some ChargeMaster-operated points are free as long as you have an account with some credit in it. Those are the three cards I have - I skipped the ones with monthly or annual fees like Source East or Plugged-In Midlands. Work out where you'd want to charge & look up who operates them on a map before committing to anything.

Maps

www.zap-map.com

www.chargemap.com

Learn moar

Kryten is smarter than you. Watch his YT series. https://www.youtube.com/user/fullychargedshow/videos

[Zak33]

next job for you is to disambiguate the cables on the market , ie who sells what and where from?

[Zak33]

I shall now attempt, with Hex in mind, try to explain how to "jump start" a TOTALLY flat Ampera/Volt.

rule one: it doesn't matter HOW charged the MAIN BATTERY IS... if the small 12v battery for the engine is flat, you'll not get that car moving. It requires the engine to be fully operational, so that IF you run out of juice in the big cells, the engine CAN start up. The 12v engine battery is essential

Rule two: Unlocking a flat car is possible... but starting it isn't. Then the entire electrical suub system becomes baffled about life and rolls over until the engine battery is loved up a bit.


Bonnet up. Look for a positive marked metal post (bear in mind that the battery is in the boot) at the back of the engine bay, mid way to the right side of the bulkhead under a flappy cover.

The negative post is to the right of the engine bay.

Use your jump leads from your runnning car to the Ampera, getting postive to positive as normal. negative to negative. so.. your running cars positive battery terminal to the positve post in the Ampera engine bay.. the negative from the running cars battery to the negative post in the Ampera engine bay.

Now, with your other car running... lock the ampera with the remote... then unlock it with the remote... with the power from the good car this will allow all the systems to actually boot up properly. With the running car held at about 2500 revs (no point going higher it won't offer more current) get in the Ampera and start it. The PETROL engine will start and begin to charge the 12v engine battery. As with all jump starts it's often a good idea to leave both running a few minutes before taking the leads off.

Once the leads are off, leave the Ampera running or better still drive it. The 12v engine battery MUST be charged for the car to be useable, inrrespective of the state of the large EV cell.

[Zak33]

http://www.vauxhall.co.uk/content/da..._June_2012.pdf

Scroll to page 172. That's where the eletrical terminal posts are

[Gerrard]

If you want more information, then you need to refer to the specification IEC 62196. This is quite in depth, but does have pictures of the connectors: -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_62196

You basically want CCS as it looks to be the future standard for Europe and incorporates AC and DC into one connector.

DC charging is much better as it means you no longer need a large AC-to-DC charger on the car as you would with the 3-phase systems. However, you would still need one for charging at home, but a 3kW converter is quite small and easy to fit into a design of a car.

[directhex]

FINALLY

[Zak33]

Yay

[directhex]

Yay

£195 flat-rate for equipment (charger, new breaker, slave meter) and installation (which took a couple of hours)

I opted for 32A and universal socket - neither of which are ideal for the Volt, but that way it's futureproof (eg someone with an i3 can visit and charge at full speed)

I can now charge from flat in 4 hours instead of the 5.5 it took with the portable-charger-into-extension-cord-through-letterbox solution. The 4 hours is a limitation on the car itself (14A maximum charge rate, despite 32A available from the socket)

[Zak33]

will be ok for the tesla too.....good plan

[directhex]

will be ok for the tesla too.....good plan

12 hours and £10 to charge a P85D from empty