davezawadi (David Stone):

It seems that manufacturers of electric cars are STILL not on the same page. All this stuff about charge rates and supplies is not the big problem, and DC charging just throws another difference into the pile. Why have they got such incompetent system architects setting the charging methods? I only want class 2 cars, that is also too difficult apparently. It is not difficult to design a charging circuit that can accept any of these supplies, with high efficiency. It is not difficult for the car to communicate wirelessly with the charging point, or expensive. It could be Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or a special protocol, most cars already have these connections. We just need a common 3 phase socket, connected to whatever is available, be it 440V 3 phase or 230V or 110V single-phase or whatever.


Your car then sends its serial number to the charging point, the driver checks the right reg. number is returned by the charger, the car negotiates the available supply, on a real-time basis if you like, and you are charged on your account. Simple enough, and fairly hack and foolproof. This is how networking and charging should work, a great pity that they don't! Existing cars can still be charged, they just need a protocol adapter lead which would be fairly cheap.


All new cars should also be class 2, which is also cheap to implement!

Wireless risks all sorts of problems when you have a row of chargers.  You could easily find that every car on a row of chargers is in range of every charger.  How do you ensure that the right driver gets billed for the right car?  The charging leads already in use have pilot wires, which can be used for a serial link.


Tesla have got it right, if you're using a Tesla car on a Tesla charger.  You plug in the car, it identifies itself to the charger, and you get billed automatically.


But we're now stuck with a legacy of many thousands of existing cars, as much as 10 years old.  We can't just scrap them all, because we want a new charging system.  So the manufacturers keep extending the existing charging system to incorporate faster charging, including DC charging, and hitting endless compatibility problems with the vehicles already on the road.

davezawadi (David Stone):

It seems that manufacturers of electric cars are STILL not on the same page. All this stuff about charge rates and supplies is not the big problem, and DC charging just throws another difference into the pile. Why have they got such incompetent system architects setting the charging methods? I only want class 2 cars, that is also too difficult apparently. It is not difficult to design a charging circuit that can accept any of these supplies, with high efficiency. It is not difficult for the car to communicate wirelessly with the charging point, or expensive. It could be Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or a special protocol, most cars already have these connections. We just need a common 3 phase socket, connected to whatever is available, be it 440V 3 phase or 230V or 110V single-phase or whatever.


Your car then sends its serial number to the charging point, the driver checks the right reg. number is returned by the charger, the car negotiates the available supply, on a real-time basis if you like, and you are charged on your account. Simple enough, and fairly hack and foolproof. This is how networking and charging should work, a great pity that they don't! Existing cars can still be charged, they just need a protocol adapter lead which would be fairly cheap.


All new cars should also be class 2, which is also cheap to implement!

Wireless risks all sorts of problems when you have a row of chargers.  You could easily find that every car on a row of chargers is in range of every charger.  How do you ensure that the right driver gets billed for the right car?  The charging leads already in use have pilot wires, which can be used for a serial link.


Tesla have got it right, if you're using a Tesla car on a Tesla charger.  You plug in the car, it identifies itself to the charger, and you get billed automatically.


But we're now stuck with a legacy of many thousands of existing cars, as much as 10 years old.  We can't just scrap them all, because we want a new charging system.  So the manufacturers keep extending the existing charging system to incorporate faster charging, including DC charging, and hitting endless compatibility problems with the vehicles already on the road.