Plug in Hybrid/EV Plugs--Propietary or Generic?

look at the post from hobbit above, it appears there is already a North American EV standard, and it seems to be what Toyota and Nissan are already using, it can take 120 or 240 as well.

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772"]SAE J1772 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]


"Adoption

SAE J1772 was adopted on January 14, 2010 by the SAE Motor Vehicle Council.[4] The companies participating in or supporting the revised -2009 standard include GM, Chrysler, Ford, Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Tesla."

 

Actually, I was trying to point out that the lack of standardization in the infant fast-charging infrastructure is a small part of the overall transportation picture. What good does "simple" gasoline pumping do if your very complex gasoline engine breaks down? EVs are much simpler and more reliable. Further, I was pointing out that for all my electric driving, I plug in at home, which is as simple as it gets.

Charging away from home is in its infancy. Today, there are very few areas where you can do it at all. But most of us live in two-car families, or more, where not every car needs to be able to go more than 100 miles, and therefore the family EV never needs to be charged away from home. If you MUST be able to charge away from home (because you drive your only car farther than 100 miles, or because you have no garage, etc.) then, sadly, the infrastructure is not yet in place for you to drive an electric car.

I agree with you that standardized charging will be a very good thing. Right now, we have companies like Nissan and Tesla installing a few chargers in a few areas for their own customers. These are bound to be proprietary.

But once there are enough EVs on the road to make it worthwhile, private concerns will build charging stations for profit, and they will aim to be able to charge all EVs. And once those stations exist, car buyers will demand that their EVs be compatible with the stations. So in the end we will have standardization. But in the mean time, we pioneers must be willing to settle for home charging unless we live where our car maker has installed some proprietary stations. Only thus will we avoid paying the terrorism tax that the Saudi sheiks put on every barrel of oil they sell.

I plead guilty to boosting the Xebra every chance I get. It's such a fun little car!

Several members of PC have more experience than I with EVs. Darell drives a RAV4EV that he bought new, and drove an EV1 until GM stole it from him and crushed it. I think there are a couple of others here who drive EVs as well.

 

Found the answer everyone wanted to know: AeroVironment is making the chargers, and they WILL be compatible between the Leaf, Chevy Volt, Ford Focus EV and others, finally an answer:

AeroVironment Takes on Home Charging for Nissan Leaf

AeroVironment Takes on Home Charging for Nissan Leaf
By Christie Schweinsberg
WardsAuto.com, Apr 7, 2010 9:00 AM
California-based AeroVironment Inc., better known in military circles as a maker of unmanned aircraft systems, is partnering with Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. to make home-charging units for U.S. buyers of the upcoming Leaf electric vehicle.
The charger also will be compatible with other EVs, including the upcoming Chevy Volt and Ford Focus electrified vehicles.

“It’s a very good charger, (and) it will work for any car,” Kristen Helsel, vice president-EV Solutions for AeroVironment’s Efficient Energy Systems, tells Ward’s.
“So whoever owns the home and owns the Leaf, if they sell and move out and a new EV owner purchases that home, the charger will work reliably for years.”
AV is not a newcomer to the vehicle-charging world. The company’s first association with automotive came when it partnered with the former General Motors Corp. in the late 1990s to develop the GM Impact electric-vehicle prototype, better known as the EV1.
Since then, AV has supplied its Power Cycling and Test Systems (formerly named Electric Vehicle Test Systems) to the world’s leading automotive, battery, and fuel-cell companies, utilities, universities, defense contractors and government agencies.
In more recent times, AV worked with GM to design and build the breakthrough solar-powered Sunraycer to compete in the inaugural 1,950-mile (1,529-km) World Solar Challenge road race.
While AV makes the Leaf’s home charger, the connector is being manufactured by another company Nissan has yet to name. Some suppliers have shown prototype plugs. Yazaki Corp. displayed an EV connector at last year’s SAE World Congress in Detroit, but it is unclear if the company plans to manufacture units for retail.
The January agreement on a connector standard, J1772, by the Society of Automotive Engineers makes the Leaf’s charger compatible with any EV, AV’s Helsel says. However, the plugs will have to be UL-certified before chargers can be retailed. That process slowly is occurring, with a handful of suppliers already announcing certification.
The home charger for the Leaf will be installed by electricians trained by AV. Although AV will not require these electricians to install the Leaf’s charger exclusively, Helsel believes there will be such strong demand for installation in certain cities that “a given electrical contractor will have dedicated people.”

Nissan will re-brand AV’s home charger for Leaf.
The process to become “AeroVironment-certified” will be elaborate, with metrics that have to be met. Once certified, the electricians will have access to AV proprietary installation tools for the home charger.
So far, about 1,000 electricians across the U.S. have signed up to train to install the home charger, which will require a 220V line. It’s not known how many Americans already have a 220V line in their garage, but new installation likely means costs will be higher.
Nissan will have a custom installation plan for those folks, says Brian Carolin, senior vice president-sales and marketing, Nissan North America Inc. The auto maker recently announced the cost to install the home charger for the Leaf will be $2,200 before a 50% federal tax credit.
Carolin says that’s the standard installation price, but those living in older homes with older wiring will require the more costly custom installation. He says AV will conduct a survey of Leaf buyers’ homes beforehand to determine which installation plan is required.
Helsel says at least one homebuilder has announced it will pre-wire with lines for $250.
“It’s not going to take effect immediately, but five years from now you might see a lot of homes come EV-ready,” Helsel says.
The Leaf’s charger can be installed outside if a municipality prohibits electricity to be run to a garage or an EV owner lives in an apartment.
AV hopes to be installing units ahead of the Leaf’s late-2010 debut, but not by much. “It’s still pretty early – we don’t anticipate thousands of people are going to feel a need for a (charger) yet,” Helsel says.

That’s also a reason why AV has not begun advertising for its home chargers. While the home charger for the Leaf will be branded Nissan, and Nissan will funnel Leaf buyers to AeroVironment, AV also will install home chargers for any EV.
As the calendar draws down to early next year, following the launch of the Leaf and Chevy Volt, an ad campaign “may make more sense,” Helsel says. She calls AV the “hidden helper” to Nissan, saying the supplier is engaging in many of the Leaf’s pre-launch activities.
“The customers who are getting engaged with the Leaf are doing so online,” she says. “So we are very involved in that, but more looking like Nissan.”
AV feels an “obligation” to make sure people are educated and comfortable in how to charge their EVs, and also to aid in their proliferation, Helsel says.
With that in mind, the company knows home-charging overnight with a 220V line, which takes about eight hours, is unlikely to please many car buyers who are used to quickly refueling their gas-powered vehicles.
A recent study from consulting-firm Accenture reveals 50%-72% of respondents, depending on their country of origin, want to be able to charge an EV in under 20 minutes.
“We’re not going to ever be able to do that with a (home charger),” Helsel says.
With that in mind, AV is chairing the SAE committee on creating a standard for 480V, level 3, DC fast chargers.
“A quick resolution of that will be important to the ultimate success of EVs,” Helsel says, noting she has seen an increased interest in DC charging by the auto industry.

AV's FAQ:
http://www.avinc.com/plugin/faq

 

The paddle chargers used by RAV4-ev's ... and Chevy pickups (maybe ford explorer too?) aren't necessarily hosed. Many have converter cables and or converter chargers on board, so that they can use alternate technology ... which the Leaf will be to the older EV's.

 

My understanding is that the bit that has to understand differences in charging profiles related to the car's chemistry is on-board. After all, the car has to charge the battery when you brake (regeneration). I don't see it as a major step to carry a few extra kilograms of AC to DC conversion.

Even the Prius can get 25kW into its battery when you brake, a rate of 100 amps at 240 volts, way more than any standard household power cables. It's limited by the ability of the battery to accept charge without heating, the generator MG1 can produce 42kW on the 2010 car (to pass on to MG2 to produce torque). You don't even have to brake that hard to produce 25kW, I reckon it's only worth a deceleration of 2.2 mph per second at 70 mph.

The SAE connector provides 120V or 240V AC at up to 80A, and there's communication between charger and car to dictate how much power the car draws.

"

Kissel said “charging stations” is a misnomer in that they are mere suppliers of ac current to the vehicle. The actual charging devices are located on the vehicle and convert the stations’ ac current into dc current for the battery. The stations constitute what is called the EVSE (electric vehicle supply equipment), which provides shock protection, as well as a signal that is sent to the car that tells it how much current can be drawn. “That’s done so the circuit breakers upstream do not trip,” said Kissel. “You could plug a car in and if it’s a big, strong electric vehicle it wants to draw a lot of current; it wants to charge quickly. But a plug-in wants to draw a little less. So the [EVSE] equipment tells the vehicle, hey, you can have 12 A or you can have 50 A out of me. So, there’s that type of communication that occurs. The standard defines how that’s done."

from J1772​

 

I took a look at a Honda natural gas car before I got a Prius. It was hard to beat for clean, but I couldn't find any way to fill it up when I was away from home. I bought a car that I could fill up anywhere in the Americas, so I am not chained to one recharging point.

If they want me to buy an electric car I'll consider it, but it better come standard with both 110 volt and 240 volt AC charger plugs, so I can top it up anywhere they have electricity. I don't mind having some kind of fancy custom 80 amp gizmo at home for fast charging, but I'm not going to be chained to one house that has special equipment in it.

 

The Leaf will come with a 120V "Trickle" charger, it could take many hours to fully recharge, if it's empty, that's why they are caling it "trickle". There are limits to how much power (KW) you can pull from a 120V/20A circuit with a safty margins so you don't overheat the circuit breaker.. 120V * 20 * .80 safty margin, its 1920 watts, or 1.92KW, the Leaf has a 24KW pack. do the division, its 12.5 hours on a 20A circuit, or 15.625 hours on a 15A circuit on a fully depleted battery

 

It puts an upper limit on the miles per day the car can go, can't argue with physics*, so you can't have any of these marathon driving sessions where you rotate drivers and just keep going 'till you hit an ocean. However, you know this going in, and if you want to take the car to Iowa or something you can, just a little slowly.

It would help if they added a second 240 volt trickle charger so you could also plug it in to any washing machine/electric stove outlet. There are a lot of them around, and it is reasonably quick and easy to have one added to an existing facility. This would mean you can go about your business and not worry too much about somebody getting out there and building a special new infrastructure just for you.

If you run the same numbers using 240 instead of 120 you get - 240 Volts * 20 Amps * .8 safety factor = 3.84 KW, that would top up a 24 KW tank in six and a half hours, basically while you sleep.


*well, you can argue, but I never seem to win.

 

Way back at post 2, I mentioned charging off the A/C plug in a motel room being twice as fast as a normal 110 plug, so you can have a full charge every morning when on the road.

http://priuschat.com/forums/ev-elec...cle-plugs-propietary-generic.html#post1107285

 

I suppose there will be people who will buy an extra 240V charger/interface, bolt it to a piece of plywood, a connect it up to a standard dryer outlet, with adapters for different 240V outlets (sound familar Darell?), put it in the trunk and when you are travelling you could plug into someones 240V dryer outlet on the road, it would cut your charging time in half. However, Nissans real goal is to get the public charging infrastructure deployed, so we don't have to go to those lengths..

click on "chargers", you can see how motivated Darell was: Darell's Electric Vehicle Page