Having designed a few  bits to go into vehicles over the years, I think part of the problem is that there is a collision of cultures about what is an acceptable risk and an adequate failure rate for a safety measure.


A car has a great many single points of failure that could if they occured result in instant death in very credible conditions, and we are happy with that.  And the next time you hammer along the Mway  spare a thought for the single skin of the  tank of fuel slung underneath, or  the exhaust hot enough to set fire to paper or grass,  or the fact your track rode ends are each held by a single slightly rusting bolt, as are a number of other vital parts.


Electrical installations on the other hand start with the principle of double fault to danger (fault from live to case AND open CPC perhaps) and then may well add 3rd and  4th layer defences. like RCDs and  bonding, insulated and sleeved.

If we graded the fault risks in a car the same way as we do with fixed wiring most cars would be a C2 as they leave the factory.


Of course cars do kill more people, a some thousands a year in the UK, and put perhaps 10 times that no in hospital, but mostly die to driver errors or external effects like falling trees. or playing children, not mechanical matters, so that is acceptable.

I imagine that the designers of the car chargers were simply working to their normal standard, the fact it was mains is less of a consideration, rather than a conspiracy to make life hard.

Also, even though it is clear to us,  I think the knowledge is not generally out there - even among folk who ideally would know better.  I have lost count of the no. of times I have sighed reached for a whiteboard pen and explained things like what exactly is PME, and why inverters on vehicles need an NE bond if you'd like an RCD to actually do anything, to other electronic designer  types, many of whom design power supplies and other significant stuff, there is a tendancy to stop thinking at the 3 pin connector at the top left of the diagram marked 'mains in', and treat the other side of it as not part of the current design.

Having designed a few  bits to go into vehicles over the years, I think part of the problem is that there is a collision of cultures about what is an acceptable risk and an adequate failure rate for a safety measure.


A car has a great many single points of failure that could if they occured result in instant death in very credible conditions, and we are happy with that.  And the next time you hammer along the Mway  spare a thought for the single skin of the  tank of fuel slung underneath, or  the exhaust hot enough to set fire to paper or grass,  or the fact your track rode ends are each held by a single slightly rusting bolt, as are a number of other vital parts.


Electrical installations on the other hand start with the principle of double fault to danger (fault from live to case AND open CPC perhaps) and then may well add 3rd and  4th layer defences. like RCDs and  bonding, insulated and sleeved.

If we graded the fault risks in a car the same way as we do with fixed wiring most cars would be a C2 as they leave the factory.


Of course cars do kill more people, a some thousands a year in the UK, and put perhaps 10 times that no in hospital, but mostly die to driver errors or external effects like falling trees. or playing children, not mechanical matters, so that is acceptable.

I imagine that the designers of the car chargers were simply working to their normal standard, the fact it was mains is less of a consideration, rather than a conspiracy to make life hard.

Also, even though it is clear to us,  I think the knowledge is not generally out there - even among folk who ideally would know better.  I have lost count of the no. of times I have sighed reached for a whiteboard pen and explained things like what exactly is PME, and why inverters on vehicles need an NE bond if you'd like an RCD to actually do anything, to other electronic designer  types, many of whom design power supplies and other significant stuff, there is a tendancy to stop thinking at the 3 pin connector at the top left of the diagram marked 'mains in', and treat the other side of it as not part of the current design.