[meetyg]

As I have 3 phase AC (400v, 3x25 amps total) at home, I was wondering how fast a 3 phase charger will charge an EV that has 1 phase on-board charger ?

For example, I was told that a 3 phase charger connected to my home AC would be set at 16 amps per phase, and total output would be around 11kw.
But, I'm awaiting delivery of a Corsa-e which has a 7kw OBC (1 phase).
Will it be able to charge at 7kw? How does this work, when input of charger is 3 phase, and OBC is just one phase?
Will it take just one of three phase lines, giving a maximum of 3.6kw (220v x 16 amps)?

I'd appreciate you inputs on this as it worries me that although I have 3 phase AC, it will actually be a disadvantage with a 1 phase OBC on the EV.

 

[meetyg]

It won't charge at 25 amps I was told, as they will limit the unit to 16 amps, in order to leave some room for other household appliances.

But thats what I was afraid of... 😕
Well, I guess 3 phase will be useful for my next EV (hoping the charge point will last that long)

The Corsa-e doesn't have an 11kw option here in Israel unfortunately. The Peugeot e208 does have that option here, but its pretty costly (costs twice as much as the option in the UK ) . So I suppose that even if the Corsa-e here had that option, I'm not sure I would spend the extra money on it anyways.

 

[meetyg]

Per phase, yes. Its total output would be 11kw

 

[meetyg]

If the car has only got a single phase on board charger then it will only connect to one phase of a 3 phase supply. If the wall unit has been limited to 16 amps per phase, then the car's charger will only receive 16A. If Israel's standard household voltage is 230v per phase (like EU) then car should get around 3.68kW but it could just as easily be 240v (like the UK was when Palestine was under the British Mandate ) which would give 3.84kW or indeed it might be anywhere between 211V & 253V as the current EU & UK standards allow.

Our nominal voltage is 230v, but I think standards allow it to down to 220v. Not a big difference anyways, compared to 7.4kw.

 

[meetyg]

I usually do around 70 km a day, 4 to 5 days a week.
I was hoping that I would be able to charge just once a week, for about 10 hours. I guess that I could get along with 3.6kw charging just fine for that once a week nightly charge (given that I won't deplete the battery to 0%). What more concerns me is those times when you need a little boost of charge in the middle of the day, or before going for a longer drive.
I know I could use public chargers for that matter (especially DC rapid chargers), but that is more of an inconvenience. Especially since we don't have much DC chargers where I live, and in any case public charging is more costly.

Yes, I know that I can't compare DC charging to a home charger at 7.4kw, but still, 7.4kw means twice as fast charging (giving around 40km per hour instead of around 20km of range, at 3.6kw).

I guess I will just have to live with it...

Most homes here do not have 3 phase. Usually larger homes do...

In my previous apartment we had 40 amp single phase, which is more or less standard.
Thats the absurd: a standard single phase AC could have charged at around 20 amps, while here i will be charging at 16amps even though I have three phase.

Anyways, I guess the reason 3 phase OBCs are not so common here (yet) is because they are costly, and most apartments have single phase anyways.

 

[meetyg]

Just charge it up every night.

It’s about as difficult as plugging in your phone each night.

You need to get out of the ICE habits. One of the key benefits of an EV is always having a full tank.

Yeah, I guess i will need to adapt to having an EV.
Now I'm hoping that the lock down we are going into next week won't delay the delivery of the car
Dealer says he thinks it won't (compared to previous one) , but we will have to wait and see...

 

[meetyg]

Isn't it possible to buy a charger that combines 3 phases into 1 and achieve the 7,4kW speed?

Not that easy to implement. Combining 3 AC phases into one isn't feasible, unlike DC where you can just connect in parallel.
I looked into this issue, as I have 3 phase AC at home, but my Corsa-e accepts only one phase (so charges at a maximum of one phase, meaning 16 Amps, 3.6 kw in my case).

I have come around to a charger which takes two phases and treats them as one higher voltage phase. They use a custom built toroidal transformer to do this.
You can get more info at:

EVTUN | Chargers, wallboxes and range extenders

evtun.com

But since I already had an EVSE installed, replacing it with this 2 phase charger seemed costly to mee, so I gave up on the idea. But it seems like a nice solution.

 

[meetyg]

In the end my "solution" for a bit faster charging was to upgrade my RCBO from 16 amps to 20 amps.
I can control the output of my EVSE from an app, so now I can charge up to 20 amps, giving around 4.2kwh. Still not that fast, but if I keep the battery above 10%, the charge time is more acceptable.