The first thing that you need to understand about charging Electric Vehicles is the fundamental difference between AC and DC chargers - as most manufacturers like to boast about the headline figure for their DC option (and you will not be having one of these at home!)
AC chargers are the type that you would generally have installed at home - or at the office and in some car parks.
Most homes only have whats called single phase electrics (so 230 volts) whereas a lot of business and commercial premises have three phase (400 volts).
A single phase charger will only offer 7.4kW of power (32 amps x 230 volts = 7360 watts) where as a three phase charger can offer 22kW (with an intermediate of 11kW being available.)
The crucial thing about AC charging however is that it uses the vehicles on board charger (or battery management system - BMS) to convert the AC power into DC power that is needed by the battery packs in order to charge. So the size of your vehicles BMS will limit how quickly your car will charge on AC.
DC Chargers on the other hand - are more commonly found at services, dedicated electric forecourts (like those of Gridserve) https://www.gridserve.com/electric-vehicle-charging/ and are generally used to 'top up' during a journey.
As can be seen in the above graphic (apologies about my lack of art skills!) - this charger connects directly with the battery and offers higher power DC directly into the battery. The battery also communicates with the charger to share its status so that the charger can apply the correct power curve during the charging session.
You will note that the DC chargers CCS plug is the same shape as the Type II plugs found on most AC units - but that they have an extra (and much bigger) 2 pins at the bottom where the DC power is fed from.
In the above image of this 2020 Jaguar iPace plugged into a tethered Zappi 7.4kW charger the rate is limited to just 7 kW by its BMS - but at home overnight (and if using the Octopus Energy Intelligent EV Tariff between 23:30 and 05:30) this car can be charged for just 2.1 pence per mile. It has a real life range of 230 miles and a battery size of 90kWh. So on the AC charging - it will take just under 13 hours to go from 0-100% charge - or to put it another way - it charges at just shy of 18 miles per hour. If you are like me - then I normally pop both my car and van on charge overnight and start every morning with full range on both.
If you are planning a longer journey - or staying away - then you may need to jump onto the public DC network - this network is rapidly expanding and really you no longer need to be worried about running out of charge if you take a sensible approach and use Apps like Zapmap https://www.zap-map.com/live/ which shows you the position, status, price and availability of almost all public chargers.
In the image below we are plugged into a 120kW Gridserve DC charger. This iPace can take up to 100kW using the DC - so would charge from 0-100% in under an hour (ignoring the charge curve). So at a motorway services using a high powered DC unit the car is charging at over 255 miles per hour!
Of course you will have to pay quite highly for this very rapid charging rate - but companies like Gridserve have invested countless millions in buying, installing and maintaining their substantial and growing network of very reliable chargers and quite rightly need to both recoup the investment and turn a profit - so expect to pay perhaps 10x what you would off peak at home - so in our case - we pay about 21 pence per mile when charging on the network.
A great place to find out more information about virtually all EV models is https://greencarscompare.com/global/rankings/charging-power-ac
In fact this is a fantastic and easy to use repository for facts and figures on almost all aspects of almost all models of EVs available.
Here at EV Electrical - we specialise in the installation of AC chargers mostly commercially and often taking advantage of our status as OZEV Authorised installers where we can obtain quite significant government grants to help businesses, educational establishments and landlords to install chargers.
We also offer a large range of domestic AC chargers to suit most home situations.
Please fill out the contact form if you would like more information about our services.
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