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UK Wants An Electric-Vehicle Charger In Every New Home (thedrive.com)
A new government proposal included in Road to Zero, a report on climate-change related policies, would require all new homes to be fitted with electric car charging points. It follows a commitment made last year by the UK to end sales of new gasoline and diesel cars by 2040. The Drive reports: "It is our intention that all new homes, where appropriate, should have a charge point available," a government statement said. "We plan to consult as soon as possible on introducing a requirement for charge point infrastructure for new dwellings in England."
To help achieve that goal, the U.K. will reportedly establish a 400-million-pound ($531 million) fund for companies that manufacture and install charging stations. The government is also reportedly looking at integrating charging stations with newly-installed streetlights, as well as wireless-charging technology. A new Automated and Electric Vehicles bill will also give the government power to mandate installation of charging infrastructure at highway service stations.
To help achieve that goal, the U.K. will reportedly establish a 400-million-pound ($531 million) fund for companies that manufacture and install charging stations. The government is also reportedly looking at integrating charging stations with newly-installed streetlights, as well as wireless-charging technology. A new Automated and Electric Vehicles bill will also give the government power to mandate installation of charging infrastructure at highway service stations.
I've heard of this special type of person called an "Engineer" who designs systems such as the electrical installation in a residence.
These "Engineers" are very clever, very clever indeed! They've come up with a method by which it doesn't matter which sort of connector is used. Incredible I know! I was hesitant to believe such a thing possible when I first heard it myself!
They call it "modularity".
Or, we find an energy storage mechanism that doesn't use a high voltage charger.
Ohm's law isn't changing any time in the next century. If you want lots of current (120kw+) into a storage device it either needs to be very high amperage (low resistance giant fat cables or room temperature super conductors) or high voltage or both.
Tesla Superchargers are high voltage and high amperage (480v and 250A).
If the UK's power mains are 230v and that's a constant that isn't going to change any time soon. So all that this law requires is that a high amperage cable be run from the circuit breaker to a place in the garage where an adapter can be wired up.
Adding an extra 30A circuit is around $50 in parts. The expensive part is just running cable in a home with drywall and studs. It only takes a minute to run the cable while the house is under construction.
1) Read the one sentence summary "charger in every new home".
2) Don't bother to read the fine article, which includes words like "where appropriate" and "consult".
3) Assume that "charger in every new home" will be applied rigidly even when it makes no sense. This will be a regulation which will probably run to hundreds of pages, but pretend that one sentence says everything you need to know about it. Also pretend that the people writing regulations are drooling idiots.
4) Conclude that the policy will lead to idiotic outcomes, rather than realizing you are making idiotic interpretation
5) Post as AC about how idiotic this policy is
6) ????
7) Profit!
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This sounds like one of those situations where they install charging stations all over the place, then in ten years there is a new standard and all the old charging stations are now obsolete.
Meh.
The charger isn't the expensive part of adding a charging station, it's getting a high-amperage power line run to the right place. Done during new construction, that costs very little. Done after the fact... it can be cheap or it can be really expensive, depending.
If I were advising the government, I'd tell them not to bother with the chargers, just add a requirement to the building code: a 240V 50A outlet should be provided in the parking lot area (in the US, it would be a NEMA 14-50 outlet; not sure what the UK equivalent is). With the power available, you can always install a charger. They don't cost much.
If they must install chargers, J1772 is standard enough. And if something else is needed, most likely you can just slap an adapter on it (I charge my Tesla with a J1772 plus a $35 adapter).
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
If you're building a house you will already hire an electrician to do many hours or even days of work, an extra few minutes to install a car charger isn't going to make much difference when he's already wiring up lighting and multiple power sockets to every room. You'll already be paying whatever charges for distance and travel they request in either case.
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Tesla is a strange one, but I'm going to guess you are North American - because almost everywhere else, Tesla uses the Type 2 socket which makes it compatible with many other public charging stations. It is speculated that the Model 3 outside North America will have a CCS2 port, which would make it compatible with both public Type2 and CCS2, as well as existing Tesla chargers/superchargers. It's a shame they didn't go down this route in North America, because they've now backed themselves into a corner due to how many cars and chargers use the existing North American socket type.
It's not an odd connector. It's a NEMA 14-50 socket, which gives you 240V @ 50A. It's a common household plug, used for electric ranges. It's also used for RVs that want 50A service. And thanks to that, there are common adapters to NEMA 14-30 (dryer plug).
So it's somewhat interesting, given you can go into an RV park and charge your Tesla as well (most RV parks provide a choice of 15/20A @ 115V, 30A and 50A service)
Most homes will have 1 or 2 of each plug, and an electrician can easily add more - the plugs are cheap. so they're one of the few EVs where the charger is practically free compared to the electrician.