EV Charging

No. From a three pin plug you can run a “granny charger”, usually limited to 2kW.

From a dedicated connection to your supply the usual EV charger is rated at

If you have three phase power you could potentially go up to 22kW with the right charger.

Anything beyond that you’re into DC charging and that’s only at commercial charge points.

Tim

You've got to be Jeff Bezos to install a fast charger at home.

some fast chargers at dedicated stations will even slow down to 50% if another car pulls into the bay next to you ...

Look. Face it. We are years away from being anywhere near the energy transfer possible with 50 litres of benzene in about 2 minutes.

That is real science.

The fast charging options are really only useful for in-journey charging. At home it's just as convenient and better for the battery to charge over a few hours overnight.

The only exception to that might be for taxi-drivers who share a car and still want to benefit from cheap home charging options. I know that's done; not sure if it meets the terms and conditions of a domestic elecricity tariff!

nib

Given many EVs have 200-300 miles range, you're only going to be needing a rapid charger at home if you do multiples of that mileage every day. If you drive 200 miles in the morning, come home for lunch and then drive 200 miles in the afternoon, you might benefit from a rapid charger at home. But you could just have your lunch at the service station down the road while you get your 350kW charge up there.

That's *maybe* airport taxi drivers, about the only category I can think of. Most other kinds of drivers operating from domestic premises, even local taxi/food/parcel delivery, are not doing those kinds of long distances.

Theo

If you have a staging battery, the staging battery can slow charge through the day, and then the battery trailer can charge your car faster via that battery. The trailer here, supports 320kW charging on the output ports, so you can fast charge.

This isn't practical of course, which is why home chargers remain (relatively) cheap and with a more modest output.

If you have access to three phase, you can order in three phase to improve your estate capabilities. 22kW for ten hours should be enough to charge your new GM electric Hummer.

Check the product brochure carefully, to see what charging standards and rates are supported. Some cars come with a NACS adapter plug.

I don't know if Bill Gates has one of those trailers. He is more likely to have his own substation instead :-)

Be aware, that various cars have available to them, two "styles" of charging.

The Ionic 5 looks like this. ____________ / \_ trapezoidal, flat charge from 10% to 80% or so -----/ \_____

Some of the Teslas, use Mountain Peak characteristic. Very little of the charge cycle is at the absolute peak.

/\_ / \__ / \__ _____/ \_______

And based on the "shape" and "magnitude" of that curve, that is how you do trip planning. Maybe you fill your Tesla from 10% to 40%, drive to the next charging station, charge for 12 minutes, drive another sub-section and so on. the Ionic 5, with the fairly low peak value and flat charge surface, you can charge that from 10% to 80% at every stop, and have time for a meal and a snooze while it happens :-)

This is one chart you acquire, before you purchase one of those, so you won't "act surprised" later that you had been taken for a ride.

You will be charging that battery, from 10% to 60%, when doing highway driving. And then the other factor, is what mix of charging stations with functional cables, can be found on your roadways. If the car has several battery equipping options, each will have a similar curve.

Even the bus company here, does not have big chargers yet for the trial buses. They're charging buses, the way a home owner would charge :-) They must be very patient people. I saw one of those buses the other day, actually carrying paying passengers, but the bus has not been seen since. I suppose the driver is sitting on the side of the road somewhere with a flat battery :-) The buses were purchased for the training course for the drivers (runs, without paying passengers).

Even people with more money than you, don't always fast charge. The bus company doesn't actually have a lot of cash on hand.

Paul

Many thanks for all the replies :-)

I thought 100 KW sounded a bit optimistic for domestic use.

Currently it is unusual to have more than a 100A supply which means essentially 23kW.

Even a three phase connection is hardly likely to be more than 40kW.

But although I hate to say it, that isn't a huge issue - most users who have domestic charging at all, are at the endpoints of their journeys and can afford to charge slower.

It is the equivalent of a motorway service station that will need to be higher, and since these will be purpose built/adapted the introduction of a serious local power source or grid connection will be standard issue one suspects.

If people still travel anywhere at all...

In that case, why do they always say that the socket should be connected direct to the consumer unit and be not part of a ring? 2kW is no more than a fan heater or a kettle.

This was my understanding.

The electrician thinks I have a three phase supply. It looks like there are three main fuses, but how do I double check (as they say) that the other two phases are connected and this is not just a standard configuration?

Is it true this shortens the life of the battery? Is it true that some cars only allow one rapid charge per day?

Actually it rather reminds me of the days when it was cheaper and quicker to fly a CD across the Atlantic than to try and transfer the data via the Internet

If - and it is an 'if' - we end up with an all nuclear electric society, then every town will have a small reactor and very large power distribution networks will simply be inevitable.

It's not rocket science, but it will take a degree of national commitment especially if its not to make the whole country look like the insides of a substation.

Of course it is years away and of course, government being government, there will be no joined up thinking involved and any government money spent will go straight into back pockets and brown envelopes. But two elements that mostrly can be said to work are already sort of emerging - maybe three.

Small modular power stations will in a few years time be rolling off the production lines in never before seen quantities. And with the footprint being little more than a small industrial estate - or indeed a motorway service station - reliable cost effective primary energy in quantity should not be a problem.

Domestic heat pumps today are simply too weak to actually be capable of out performing a largish gas or oil boiler, but given a domestic supply that defaults to three phase 100A per phase that should be enough to properly heat even a house that isn't built to keep all the farts inside the triple glazed windows.

And once the problems of registration and taxation have been sorted, it would be sensible that a suburban household have several electric vehicles and a hybrid for longer distances .

Urban homeowners would either use public transport, or have just scooters and bicycles, walk or take a cab. And keep any car they have in a secure multi storey car park equipped with charging points.

Back in the day buying petrol was something that if you were lucky you could do at a chemist shop, or perhaps one of those new fangled motor mechanics would sell you some.

The thought of the network we have to day of motrorwas and service stations was unthinkable

Its all going to happen if it turns out to be cost effective, and the less governmemt has to do with it the better and faster it will happen.

But its is probably going to be the new 'fashion' to pour public money not into the dole or DEI initiatives but into public infrastructure projects.

We have built f*ck all since the 1960s, really, except a pretty decent broadband network and a few very expensive roads

You don't need a socket connected direct, but the difference with EV charging is that it's for a long period. On granny chargers (which are usually 10A, so 2.4kW) you might be drawing that for 20 hours. If your wiring is substandard then pulling that current for 20 hours will cause it to get warm, which it wouldn't do for a few minutes with a kettle or a heater with a thermostat. The wiring should be able to cope with that, but if it's shoddy then it could cause issues.

Similarly, there are 'EV' 13A sockets which are rated for the high temperatures which might otherwise cook the plastic of regular sockets. It doesn't take much to achieve that - they don't advertise it loudly, but most of Hager's range is BS1363-2/EV compliant. They're just a faceplate swap with a regular socket.

If it's a 7kW connection it needs a separate circuit - that's to do with both current and earthing requirements. (Cars have both exposed metalwork and stand outside of your house independently in contact with the ground, so the earthing rules are tighter)

You likely have a three phase incomer but not a three phase meter? ie there are three wires coming from the street to the fuses but only one wires going from a fuse to the meter.

You almost certainly don't need three phase power anyway. Even if you have multiple power hungry devices (EV, electric shower, heat pump) you can load balance between them much more cheaply than paying for a supply upgrade.

Generally such things are a thing of the past and only apply to older EVs, especially those without active battery cooling (hello Nissan Leaf). Toyota do limit the number rapid charges per day on their BZ4X, but then Toyota's EVs are old tech that they've taken forever to bring to market, don't have any particular merits and are best ignored.

Theo

"A Granny Lead" plugs ito a normal 13A socket - not the same as a dedicated car charger socket. I use the "granny lead" when staying at my daughter's house.

The best use scenario for EVs is commuting - maybe 20-40 miles a day, and a possible 100-200 stretch at the weekends.

Well that's never going to happen then.

Unless we have another all out war. Luckily so many people who survived the last war are still around to tell us how to do it again.

Not all cars can accept 3ph AC though.

And short trips - say less than 2 miles, before an ICE car has normally started to warm up. Added benefit is reduced particulate emissions.

An EV would be ideal for me for normal use, 20 mile round trips but visiting daughter (160 miles each way) and sister (175 miles each way) might take some planning.

I need something Kia Picanto size (to fit 1980's garage) but they are all bogging expensive.