Universal charging station standards

[Chuq]

I started to reply to this post by @bladecar elsewhere, found it was getting quite lengthy and off-topic for the original thread, so thought I'd post here.

I wonder what the key things are in order for any car to be able to pull up at any recharging station, plug it in and walk away.

A good question, and I'm looking at it from the point of view of a lot of new EV owners who are "normal" and not mad keen enthusiast adaptor collectors like many of us! For that reason I'm not including "power socket" sites (10A, 15A, 3-phase) nor Tesla specific infrastructure in this post.

I think the biggest step is that cars need to be sold with a Type 2 cable included, same as in Europe. That'd fix it for the majority of sites.

There aren't any government mandated standards in Australia, but the FCAI has agreed that:

• DC charging stations should have both CCS2+Chademo plugs
• AC charging stations should have Type 2 sockets (without cable)
• new vehicles should have CCS2 inlet (capable of accepting CCS2 + Type 2) or secondary preference, Chademo + Type 2 inlets.

Of course there are a lot of existing Chademo+J1772 vehicles, and now many second hand cars coming into the country also with Chademo+J1772. This works with the new standards since Chademo is included for DC charging stations (noting that while some individual fast charging *units* don't have Chademo, every fast charging *site* has at least one unit with Chademo). Socket-only AC charging stations provide compatibility with all vehicles (the vehicle owner just buys the right cable and keeps it with their car).

All CCS1 charging stations and vehicles should be phased out (plenty of discussion re: adaptors occurring elsewhere in the forum).

J1772 cabled stations will probably hang around for some time, we shouldn't be installing any more of them. They'll probably get replaced gradually, there is the risk of new EV owners rocking up to them and finding they can't use them. Not too bad at the moment with the large number of Leafs, also with many EV owners expecting to need a variety of adaptors. But there are more and more first time owners who won't be installing a bunch of apps or looking up plug types, who just want things to work. Options I can think of:

• Provide a J1772-Type2 adaptor with the car
• Have the vehicle navigation system automatically filter out locations that aren't compatible
• Blanket replacing all J1772 charging units with Type 2 sockets
• Ensure there is another nearby Type 2 location that can be used

Each has pros and cons. I guess even if there isn't a particular effort made, the number of J1772 sites will decrease by attrition (and as a percentage of total sites, will decrease at an even faster rate as more and more Type 2 locations are installed)

(All of this only applies to public stations. For private use, of course people can install whatever suits!)

[rhills]

Great post @Chuq, thanks!

What would improve it further for those of us who still grapple with all the acronyms would be a set of labelled pix showing the different types of connector. I know J1772 and I think I could recognise a CHADEMO, but I wouldn't recognise any of the others you've mentioned.

[Chuq]

set of labelled pix showing the different types of connector.

Good idea! I grabbed this one off Google Images, make a couple of edits (because they are usually US-centric) and added the guide down the bottom.

Every time I look for one I can never find one that is entirely accurate (e.g. this one still omits the Tesla custom Type 2 DC plug which Model S and X use) but it is close enough for now!



The "probably rest of world" is my speculation, given than Western Asia and Africa are geographically contiguous with Europe it seems a good bet. Tesla is using CCS2 for their superchargers in Uzbekistan, Jordan and UAE so it seems a reasonable assumption.

[EVdownUnder]

Thank you. Great info. And the plugs are only half the problem.
I would like to plug and walk. None of that rubbish “which company is this one? Do I have the NFC card to initiate the charge?“
At least we only have 2 in Australia but from what I’ve seen on YouTube, Europeans need a special EV wallet for all their cards... And mobile phone systems are no better as many chargers are in underground car parks with little to no reception.
I know that Tritium (and probably many more) have already designed the “MAC address” style connection, and I’m really looking forward to one plug type and auto-negotiate/pay system.
Does anyone know if that could be implemented with a new firmware on existing CCS2 EVs?
So here is my dream, one plug world-wide, auto-negotiation, and V2X as standard.