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Standard For Electric Car Charging Announced

Posted by Soulskill on from the which-automakers-will-promptly-ignore dept.

SchrodingerZ writes "The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), an international syndicate, has unveiled what is to become the standard for electric car charging. In today's market there are hundreds of different methods and plugs to charge a variety of different cars, now a single multi use plug is announced as the world standard. Called the J1772 , it 'has two charging plugs incorporated into a single design and is said to reduce charging times from as long as eight hours to as little as 20 minutes.' The cumulative work of over 190 'global experts,' the plug can cater to both AC and DC currents for charging. The plug also sets a new standard on safety regulations, including 'its ability to be safely used in all weather conditions, and the fact that its connections are never live unless commanded by the car during charging.' The J1772 beat out its Japanese competitor the CHAdeMO, used as an option on the Nissan Leaf."

13 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. Another one? by Kenja · · Score: 4, Informative

    We went through all this in the 90's. Even had "standard" charges at the public transit stations. Ah well, perhaps it'll stick this time.

    --

    "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    1. Re:Another one? by Art+Challenor · · Score: 5, Informative

      The summary (as usual) is a little misleading. The J1772 standard has been around for a while and is widely adopted. As I understand it, the "new" part to this is the addition of an optional, additional, connector that allows DC charging.

      High power AC/DC converters are expensive and generate heat, so require costly in-vehicle infrastructure. If the conversion is moved the charging station the on-board electronics are simplified.

      So you can have a relatively low-cost, slow charger at home. Charging stations can provide a fast DC charge. The initial cost of the charging station would increase, but the cost per vehicle would be much lower. So if 10 people per day spend 30 minutes charging you can amortize the higher cost of 10 vehicles.

    2. Re:Another one? by tlhIngan · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yeah, I'm wondering that too. As of a few months ago my city put up electric charging stations all around the downtown area. If there wasn't a standard, then why did the stations lack any model information.

      Technically, the standard for those charging stations would be the traditional 3 pin 15 amp socket that you plug anything into. Because every electric car can plug into a atandard 110V 15A socket (at least in North America).

      Problem is, the end that goes into the car isn't standard, so those charging stations rely on the user to haul around the charging cable wherever they went. And the car end is important because it has to handle charging from a 110V15A socket, but the user at home may have bought a fast charger using 220V15A or higher. And perhaps you want DC if you're wanting alternative energy so instead of wasting energy inverting and then rectifying power, you can plug straight into your battery bank.

      So this stadnard means charging stations can continue to offer standard 110V sockets (with owner-provided power cord) and provide the connector at the end of a cord (like gas station nozzles) so the owner doesn't need their car cable and the car can charge faster if it needs to.

    3. Re:Another one? by Medievalist · · Score: 4, Funny

      What all is required to convert ac to dc? I thought all you needed was 4 resistors in the right arrangement.

      4 diode's, and its pretty ineffecient/dirty way of doing it.

      it isn't inefficient and it isn't dirty either. the only problem is one needs a huge cap.

      Without that huge capacitor, it's as dirty as it gets. And isn't the efficiency determined by the diode voltage drop?

      Hey, look, I built a pedant cascade!

  2. J1772 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Seriously... they called it the "JIZZZ"?

  3. Hundreds? by marcroelofs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How can there be 100's of different plug varieties when there areonly 10's of different elctric cars yet. Also, how can plug-design speed up charge time 24 times?

    1. Re:Hundreds? by Gordonjcp · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You'd need a *lot* more volts and amps. I have a van, which has an 80 litre tank that takes roughly two minutes to fill. On that 80 litres I get around 950km range, or to translate into American units around 30mpg. Now, I'm hauling around roughly 800kWh of energy in that tank. Let's assume that the vehicle actually turns only 30% of that into motion - that gives us 320kWh worth of actual movement.

      So if we assume that an electric car is 100% efficient, it would need 320kWh of batteries to travel 950km - and these would take a correspondingly large amount of power to charge. If you charge for ten hours, you'd need to be feeding in 32kW continuously. If you wanted to recharge as quickly as filling the diesel tank, you'd need 576kW available.

      I for one do not welcome our .5MW charging connector overlords.

  4. The great thing about standards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.

    1. Re:The great thing about standards by Twinbee · · Score: 4, Funny

      Exactly, I've been campaigning for cars to be charged via USB so I can charge my car from my laptop. They're so ubiquitous now that it's a waste to have yet another standard. BUT NO, now we get J1772 on top of USB, firewire, HDMI, and the thousand of other standards out there.

      --
      Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
  5. Europe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    In Europe we want micro-usb.

  6. Re:Can the car control the cable if the battery di by Smidge204 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Electric cars have at least two batteries: One main battery for motion (the traction battery) which is the one everyone focuses on, and a traditional 12-volt lead-acid car battery that operates all the normal 12-volt lights and accessories that modern cars are fitted with. If the main traction battery is completely dead - which would be an extreme failure case but let's say it did - the charger controls are all fed from the 12V system so at worst you'd need a quick zap from a set of jumper cables to get things going.
    =Smidge=

  7. Incorporates previous designs by dlenmn · · Score: 5, Informative

    From TFA:

    [The New standard is] based on the 2009 J1772, which had only an AC charging plug. The current version includes a DC plug underneath the AC plug, which means that not only are both options available, but cars with the older J1772 couplings, such as the 2012 Nissan Leaf and 2013 Chevrolet Volt, can still use the new plug.

  8. Re:Can the car control the cable if the battery di by Vicarius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    For some cars, like Tesla, if your main battery dies (i.e. drains itself), you will have to buy a new $40,000 battery that is not covered by warranty.