There were more than 50,000 Outlander PHEVs on UK roads in 2020, over 1,000 Vauxhall Amperas, and a handful of Ford Focus, Toyota Prius +, etc. The order of magnitude is over 120,000 Type 1 cars.
Type 2 to Type 1 converters
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Tesla in North America sells adaptor to allow people to charge their car (with Tesla socket) with Type 1 plugs. There is also no locking mechanism, so anyone can unplug during charge.
But the good thing with Type 1 is that it wouldn't come loose, its clip ensures plug stays plugged in. Unfortunately Type 2 lacks this very neat feature. Perhaps this is why reputable shops sell Type 1 to Type 2 converter, but not the other way round.
Personally, I prefer the plug controls locking mechanism. Chademo locking is controlled by the charger, Type 1 locking is on the plug and car can optionally lock it. It makes everything so simple, for example no need to lock when at home so no need to faff with cable unlock in the morning. DC rapid unlock will also mean once finished, if the car is overstaying, charger can release lock and allow other people to start charging.
But the good thing with Type 1 is that it wouldn't come loose, its clip ensures plug stays plugged in. Unfortunately Type 2 lacks this very neat feature. Perhaps this is why reputable shops sell Type 1 to Type 2 converter, but not the other way round.
Personally, I prefer the plug controls locking mechanism. Chademo locking is controlled by the charger, Type 1 locking is on the plug and car can optionally lock it. It makes everything so simple, for example no need to lock when at home so no need to faff with cable unlock in the morning. DC rapid unlock will also mean once finished, if the car is overstaying, charger can release lock and allow other people to start charging.
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No, I'm simply saying that many people with plug-in hybrids don't have a type 2 cable at all. That means they cannot use socketed chargers without the expense of buying a cable and why would they do that when they can just plug in to some rapid with an AC cable and trickle charge at 3.6kW? So giving them access to slower tethered AC chargers makes a lot of sense and benefits everyone.
Because mixing phases is not trivial if the Type 2 is wired for three phase.
You could just take L1 and N and pass those to a Type 1 plug, but then you're only drawing off one phase and could be limited to a much lower charge rate unless each of the three phases is able to offer 7 kW by itself.
This is a bit of a bodge, but it's basically what the current adapters do. If the Type 2 socket is single phase, this works and can pass all of the capacity to the Type 1 plug, which is also single phase.
Why not? And why should their needs be pandered to causing a disadvantage to others?
I need more information to follow you.
- We do exactly as you describe in the UK, USA and Japan with zero difficulties and it transmits all the power that UK, US and Japanese phase 1 mains can supply: It is compliant, safe, and reliable (not a bodge).
- Though most Type 1 configurations are 3kW (13A), I once read in the standards that Type 1 plug is rated to maximum 11 kW (45A).
- Regardless of the supply all the energy is converted to a DC; there is no EV car that stores energy as AC phase 3 and significant energy conversion is unavoidable.
- My understanding is that 3 phase means 3 wires (1 phase means 1 wire): 2 or 3 wires can be combined into 1 wire by various mechanisms (e.g. single phase converter). Why resist conversion from AC 3 phase to AC 1 phase when conversion to DC (1 phase) is unavoidable? Can you quantify the extra efficiency loss?
- If a Type 1 plug can deliver 11kW, then it could be plugged to a maximum of 26A on phase 3, which seems perfectly within tolerance of EU 3 phase electricity supplies. It would appear there was no engineering constraint that necessitated a 3 phase plug for the EU: So unless that is a substantial efficiency loss in 3 phase to 1 phase it appears the EU simply created a novel market standards to exact political control (as it so often does).
- In any case, at a practical level all of the EU shenanigans have been irrelevant in UK, USA and Japan because these regions rely on phase 1 supplies. As the UK is now outside of the EU, why is any emotional hoo-har for a 3 phase plug (with redundant copper that will never transmit energy) persisting?
- If you are environmentally conscious, why use a cable that contains up to 66% unusable materials?
How do they plug-in without a cable?
Untrue because tethering the AC charger blocks that charger for a lot people, and thus is clearly not a benefit to everyone!
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Maybe they use the granny cable that came with the car, or perhaps they have a tethered charger at home.
If you have a PHEV and mostly charge at home then paying £100 for occasional use of public chargers doesn't make much sense.
They've also blocked a load of parking spaces from use by the 80%? of Oxfordshire drivers that don't have a plugin car. I don't think there's any intention to benefit everyone.
The tradeoff is that by making it unusable for 6% of plug-in drivers you make it more convenient for everyone else and accessible to people who can't use untethered at all (including those with mobility issues where tethered is significantly easier to use).
That 6% is only going to drop in future, there will be no new plugins that can't use the tethered chargers. The Oxfordshire council chargers are looking to the future: they are intended to make it possible for people to buy an EV when they have no option to charge at home. They're looking to benefit people who currently don't have an EV but could get one in future.
According to Wikipedia, the maximum current for a Type 1 connection is 80 amps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772 Most vehicles using this connector have 3.3 kW or 6.6 kW on-board chargers, so can't use anywhere near that 80 A.
Three-phase power needs 3 line and 1 neutral wire, unless the device connected draws exactly equal current on each phase, in which case the neutral wire carries no current and can be omitted. Old-ish large induction motors often run on 3-phase power and don't need neutral, but for wiring an office, farm or factory it is necessary.
The necessity is that in a lot of continental Europe, many, many homes have low-current 3-phase mains supplies, rather than higher-current single-phase as is near universal in Britain. To avoid the 5-figure price and significant disruption of running a new mains cable to each home, a car plug and socket was needed which is compatible with the existing power system. Choosing a single standard plug which can be used for either 1-phase or 3-phase mains, rather than leaving it to individual car manufacturers to introduce their own, made absolute sense.
Most new EVs seem to be made with three 3.6 kW AC-DC conversion modules for battery charging, and switch in one, two or all three across 1 or 3 phases, depending on what they find themselves connected to. That leads to efficient conversion (each module runs at its rated power) and charging from 32 amp 1-phase or 16 amp 3-phase, well suited to home charge points.
Japan and North America mains power is technically 2-phase 120 volts, which means for connecting purposes you can use either 120 or 240 volts along 2 wires. Plus a third wire for the protective earth.
If referring to the thick copper power conductors in the cable, that's at most 40% unused, not 66%. Single-phase charging cable needs line, neutral and protective earth, total 3 thick wires. Three-phase needs line 1,2 and 3, neutral and PE, total 5 wires. The extra half a kilogram of copper in a type 2 cable is not much compared with all the copper in motors and cables and inductors inside the car, and copper has an efficient and fully used recycling market (that's why there are cable thieves: scrap copper is valuable). Not a significant environmental cost, compared with running a car at all.
It is a bit wasteful that the Type 2 standard doesn't allow a single cable with 32 A single phase and 16 A three-phase, which would reduce the weight, cost and amount of copper in the lead coiled up in the boot or froot. (3 thick and 2 thinner wires in the cable.) The standard doesn't have any way the cable can give such detailed information to the car - it's just a resistor to code the maximum current.
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EV Cables sell a T1 Female (car) to T2 Male (cable) Compact Adaptor
"Have a Type 1 car and are trying to use Type 2 charging stations?
You can use this adaptor to allow you to use any Type 2 cable/Charge station and allow up to 7kW (32A) of charging power."
"Have a Type 1 car and are trying to use Type 2 charging stations?
You can use this adaptor to allow you to use any Type 2 cable/Charge station and allow up to 7kW (32A) of charging power."
@Mark I , your post is helpful for providing accurate information. I remain confused, however, as to why any of the information you provided necessitates a different plug.
When we plug into a Type 2 socket at a UK charger, we have 2 wires ignored (at the socket) because there is nothing feeding them and we have 1 remaining wire feeding the plug: The end result is the same for Type 1 and Type 2 plugs. The car charger operates off 1 live wire and the Type 1 plug has overcapacity (240v 80A).
When plugged into a Type 2 socket at a German charger, why can a cable not merge 3 lines (at the socket) into one line (at the plug) with the car charger operating off 1 live wire? Would that not be simpler? Is retaining 3 phases from socket to plug also demanding avoidable over-engineered complexity from the car's AC to DC converter?
When we plug into a Type 2 socket at a UK charger, we have 2 wires ignored (at the socket) because there is nothing feeding them and we have 1 remaining wire feeding the plug: The end result is the same for Type 1 and Type 2 plugs. The car charger operates off 1 live wire and the Type 1 plug has overcapacity (240v 80A).
When plugged into a Type 2 socket at a German charger, why can a cable not merge 3 lines (at the socket) into one line (at the plug) with the car charger operating off 1 live wire? Would that not be simpler? Is retaining 3 phases from socket to plug also demanding avoidable over-engineered complexity from the car's AC to DC converter?
This is not necessarily true. There are plenty of three phase type 2 chargers in the UK that can deliver more than 7.4 kW 1ph if the car has a 3ph charger on board.
You cannot just join up the three phases from a 3ph power system together - if you short them out across the phases you're going to have a bad time. Anyone who's ever accidentally (or otherwise!) shorted from L1 to L2 or L3 will be able to tell you what happened.
All the AC power is turned into DC for battery by the inverter but this happens long after the socket.
It's simply not trivial to join three phases together into "single phase" while taking all the power too. You either split the phases, like most of the UK domestic network, where groups of houses are fed by either L1, L2 or L3 and a common N, or you use a proper 3ph distribution board if all three phases are fed to the property (commercial units and some houses with larger loads).
Three phase is common in the UK, it just tends to be found in commercial settings, making the Type 2 connector ideal for us, Brexit or not.
There's no trivial way to take all three phases from a Type 2 3ph socket and "join them" into one conductor in a Type 1 plug, regardless of the current rating of the plugs and cables. The phases simply aren't compatible with each other. The only solution is to just connect to one of the three phases (usually L1 since it's always wired in a Type 2 plug). If the 3ph supply happens to be 3.6 per phase then unfortunately you'll only get 3.6 kW charging in this case.
Whatever the tale is, as they lived to tell the tale it cannot have been a total disaster.
If the 3 phases cannot be combined, then by logical inference the cars with Type 2 plugs are not combining three phases: To draw on three wires do the cars carry three distinct AC to DC converters, and three batteries?
Oh ok. So three DC feeds can be combined, and three AC feeds cannot be combined? Apologies, I am trying to follow with near zero knowledge of electrical engineering and rationalise what with WWW content:
That's not what I read here: "In a three phase ... In case of an unbalanced load system (which leads to unstable voltage and unexpected current which may lead to system failure and even there is a risk of electric shock as well), the neutral is used to return the unbalanced current to the source of supply voltage.", which implies to me the three can be combined and the inconsistency sent back to the grid. Surely the returned load is small and the German grid not excessively inconsistent!? How to Wire Combo of 3 & 1-Φ, 400V/230V Distribution Board?
Three AC-DC converters, but obviously feeding one battery!
You can parallel the DC outputs safely enough.
This is not talking about shorting out the phases, it is talking about what happens if the three phases are unequally loaded.
A three phase system has three separate and utterly electrically incompatible Live conductors - L1, L2 L3 that share a common neutral. These three phases can then be used independently as "single phase" supplies.
This is what happens in the UK. The grid supplies 3ph to the substations and then three different streets are fed the three phases. All the houses on one street get L1, all the ones on the second get L2 etc and they all use the common neutral.
The phases are "in balance" if the current demand on all three phases is the same - this is the ideal situation and it means no current will flow on the neutral conductor.
This is not possible to achieve in practice, however, since there will always be a little imbalance - eg, there might be 10 houses on street 1 but only 6 houses on street 2, so the L1 is probably going to see more load on it. This is corrected for by current flowing on neutral.
Three phase systems are designed as much as possible to be close to balanced since this is the optimal setup.
It has nothing to do with connecting the three live conductors together - this would be a short and will trip the breaker (or worse).
You need three separate AC inverters fed from each phase.
DC power can be combined by just joining the outputs of these AC inverters.
The three phase inputs cannot be joined under any circumstances.
Some EVs can do clever things by combining more than one inverter on single phase power, but this only works when both are fed from the same individual phase.
It's like Mentoes and Diet Coke - both are logically in the same place in my stomach if I consume them. It doesn't mean I can keep them both in the same receptacle before I eat them unless I want to clean up a huge mess.
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