Charging electric cars

[Michael Chare]

Should all electric cars use a standard European wide charging plug? Just how safe is charging an electric car when it is pouring with rain?

[Theo]

Most sold in Europe and North America support CCS.

Assuming a proper installation, I wouldn't worry about it. No power is supplied until a successful negotiation between the car and EVSE.

Theo

[Andy Burns]

mostly type 2 nowadays (with a sprinkling of proprietary or older plugs for early adopters).

yes, the waterproof plug isn't live until it's mated and communication takes place to turn it on.

[polygonum_on_google]

Would also make sense for all electric bicycles to be able to use a common plug. And for every car charger to have one or more sockets for bicycle charging. Suspect the incremental cost would be tiny if that was part of the standard design.

No issue with manufacturers being allowed to supply all sorts of fancy chargers, if they wish, but support one standard which can be used when out and about.

[Theo]

Possibly. Most e-bikes expose the raw lithium pack voltage, although via the BMS. You need to provide a CC/CV source at the exact pack voltage (to the nearest 100mV or so).

You'd need to provide a means to signal exactly what voltage/current you need to provide, and then the car charger would have to implement that.

It would make more sense to supply that at a bike stand, nowhere near car charging points.

There is one. It's defined by BS1363. You just need to carry around a suitable adapter.

Theo

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

One would hope it was as safe as most electrical gear outside in the rain. The problem comes if the same brain dead yobs who pull the fronts off of lamp posts do the same with on street charging points I suppose. There has to be a cut off to stop such things happening. I also wonder what you do if you put it on charge while away, and the power goes off the night before the trip. Brian

[The Natural Philosopher]

In fact unless the pack is massively discharged or has more than about 7 cells, its possible to calculate what the cell count is. I have a charger that does exactly that.

The charger supplies constant current until the pack is at 4.2V per cell.

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