[Rbrian]

If it's the same engine bay layout as the e208, which seems likely, then there will be physical room under there but I wouldn't want to leave the cable there when driving. If you can get 11 kW then you definitely have the 3ph cable. I always thought it was a bit odd that Peugeot made the 3ph on board optional while it was standard on the Corsa. You think they'd have kept those the same.

The inverter and charger assembly is under the plastic cover mounted on top of the motor assembly near the DCC converter.

It wasn't always standard on the Corsa. I suspect it changed to simplify the range; there are hardly any options - glass or metal roof, black or body colour roof, and the paint colour. That's it. The e208 has far more options, and it's about £3000 more expensive across the board.

 

[Simon..Hewison]

Sure, but with economies of scale, how much would one such granny cost if every car supported only DC charging? Put another way, is there anything in that rare box that does not already exist in the wider technology stacks of cars and chargers?

If you want DC-only charging, the technology is there already. Go and buy a Mercedes Benz eActros truck.
or a mobility scooter
or an ebike.

There's reasons for that spread at both ends of the market.
Mobility Scooters and ebikes only ever tend to be charged at home, and the battery packs can't take charge very fast anyway, typically their off-board chargers will draw less than 3 amps from the mains.
The big eActros truck has the opposite problem, that the massive battery pack only makes sense to charge at over 43kW, which is the highest power level (63A, 3 phase) that is available on AC. It also would typically only be charged at a depot.
In the middle, there's almost every other electric vehicle made, which can get a meaningful charge from almost any AC power outlet, and will frequently be in places away from home / depot, hence having a cheap and plentiful supply of locations to charge, from a granny cable using a 13A socket to a 22kW three-phase charge point. Start having to install high-power rectifiers at every possible charging location, things gets very expensive.

 

[BurningNaturalGas]

Start having to install high-power rectifiers at every possible charging location, things gets very expensive.

I would think that having a myriad of different standards, demanding complex over-engineered multi-point installations at every charging location, should cause things to get even more expensive.

Just 2 minutes from me is one of the new expensive and complicated Shell chargers that on-paper supports just about every charging standard. It has been perpetually displaying "charging not available" in difficult to see green LED words on the side of it's contactless pay point. I often see drivers sat quietly in their cars, plugged-in, happily reading a paper. However, those plugs absolutely do not release any electricity (as confirmed to me by Shell). Presumably not many EVs come with an alarm to warn drivers that their power source is defunct?

I check that charger regularly hoping for a status change, and it is consistently showing "charging not available". It goes without saying that I have only plugged-in at that point once, and it does not surprise me that I never see a same car "charging" twice at that point. I do see drivers leaving in a distracted anxious mental state, evidenced by two details: Their pale faces, and their charge lids being left open.

As this is a repeating story I have a developed a recurring mental image that causes me to wonder what should happen if any of those EVs were actually needing a recharge before leaving: By coincidence I passed one EV abandoned in a junction not more than 2 minutes from the charger (in the opposite direction of my house). As this is in the sticks there were no houses near to the junction to graciously offer a single phase 10A top-up through a cheap garden mower cable. The police came for it. Poor soul, quite possibly made poorer by the expensive state of our charging networks.

In principle, why has the EU mandated its own standards that have divided the EV market and created a world in which I cannot stop and offer another driver a top-up from my long-established CHAdeMO port?

 

[dk6780]

why has the EU mandated its own standards that have divided the EV market

Because the Germans know best and have undue influence over the EU. Not just have they created an incompatible standard but it's so poorly defined that it often fails to work. All three of the car manufacturer, the charger manufacturer and the network have to negotiate a compatible product. And don't get me started on the continuing absence of an implemented V2X standard for either AC or DC. Thanks EU!

 

[Cptn_penguin]

I would think that having a myriad of different standards, demanding complex over-engineered multi-point installations at every charging location, should cause things to get even more expensive.

Just 2 minutes from me is one of the new expensive and complicated Shell chargers that on-paper supports just about every charging standard. It has been perpetually displaying "charging not available" in difficult to see green LED words on the side of it's contactless pay point. I often see drivers sat quietly in their cars, plugged-in, happily reading a paper. However, those plugs absolutely do not release any electricity (as confirmed to me by Shell). Presumably not many EVs come with an alarm to warn drivers that their power source is defunct?

You have to keep your trolling consistent. If you want your position to be that we should all have DC chargers on our walls at home then you need to ignore discussions about complex DC chargers that don't work properly.

Are we ranting about the EU's stance on AC charging or DC charging here?

It's hard to keep track of the nonsense.

 

[BurningNaturalGas]

You have to keep your trolling consistent. If you want your position to be that we should all have DC chargers on our walls at home then you need to ignore discussions about complex DC chargers that don't work properly.

Are we ranting about the EU's stance on AC charging or DC charging here?

It's hard to keep track of the nonsense.

I am very consistently not trolling, thank you: I am exploring what an ideal solution would look like by consistently highlighted issues that have stemmed from a standards-setting body introducing standards that added little or no value, caused side-effects, and have a measurable net-negative consequence.

The EU standards-setting body meddled in both AC and DC charging, and I am detecting that you clearly dislike that the measurable negative side-effects of their interventions sum-up to be fairly significant.

Falsely accusing someone else of trolling is of course, trolling!

If you must know my current view is that Type 1 is a very adequate stop-gap because single phase mains AC is available everywhere with no new infrastructure. The specifications conveniently scales down to low amps on rickety old Victorian wiring, and scales up to higher amps should the plug have lingered far into the future although I would favour deprecating it as soon as DC charging is mainstream. My view is that Type 1 could have been extended to support 3 phases while maintaining backwards compatibility, although before expending effort on such a design one should first weigh-up the justifications for not trickle charging at low amps and not fixing the problems in EU grids that compelled them to use 3 phases for a single house in the first place: 3 phase consumer units in each house is avoidable expense. My view is that DC is the long term solution not simply because it enables fast charging, but because it enables various V2L use cases, and that is where funding in dedicated charging infrastructure would reap rewards (although the added costs of V2L in a 3 phase house might be another good reason to ditch 3 phases).

Not only is Type 2 an avoidable indirection, but combining AC and DC in a single plug is a clear case of over-engineering for the sake of it because there is no use case for AC and DC charging at the same time. Furthermore, the biggest impact of changing the plug is that the EU has effectively blocked the emergence of practical V2L use cases. There has been a very effective "divide and conquer" action against the EV industry and its customers, effectively stalling innovation by decades. The benefits I can see favour the German & French national grids: Low cost inaction for them coupled with increased dependency on them, a win-win for one of the strongest EU lobbying groups!

 

[Cptn_penguin]

I am very consistently not trolling, thank you: I am exploring what an ideal solution would look like by consistently highlighted issues that have stemmed from a standards-setting body introducing standards that added little or no value, caused side-effects, and have a measurable net-negative consequence.

The EU standards-setting body meddled in both AC and DC charging, and I am detecting that you clearly dislike that the measurable negative side-effects of their interventions sum-up to be fairly significant.

Falsely accusing someone else of trolling is of course, trolling!

You're being highly disingenuous, or at the very least, dismissing people who actually know what they're talking about when it comes to electrical equipment and electrical theory in favour of some conspiracy that the EU made decisions based on some nefarious need to be "other" rather than adapting to the reality of the European electrical grid.

You're also floating ideas that have been readily disproven as impractical and expensive in this continued anti-EU rant and you're not even internally logically consistent.

There's a reason the EU went with the Type 2 connector. There's a reason you can't just short out L1, L2 and L3 conductors to make trivial single phase converters. There's a reason we use on-board inverters in BEVs and have the supply equipment provide AC line voltage in either 1ph or 3ph flavours. There's a reason that CCS (in both Type 1 and Type 2 guises) is preferred over Chademo.

All of these things have been explained in detail, including the practical and economic reasons, but you still think it's some grand machiavellian scheme by Germany to personally piss off people who bought cars with Type 1 and/or Chademo connectors and that a council fitting tethered Type 2 chargers in a country where Type 2 sockets have been standard in all but a couple of early-adopter cases is some part of the master plan.

Should DC rapid charging be more robust? Absolutely. But the problem of having the charger off-board and needing to appropriately connect, negotiate and charge any DC traction pack is not trivial, especially at high rates of charge.

Would it be nice if all possible AC connectors were supported everywhere? Of course, but we standardised around a connector that had tangible benefits for the EU.

Is it unfortunate that Chademo was not adopted by everyone? No, definitely not. There are benefits to CCS that Chademo could not easily match.

The "solutions" that you propose (everyone has their own HT DC charger at every charge location!) are simply not at all feasible if the goal is better interoperability, lower costs and more robust charging networks. It's also absurdly reinventing the wheel for no good reason when every property in the UK is supplied with AC power.

Maybe we should mandate that all electrical devices are supplied as DC-only and then have all the HT rectification done in-wall so you can plug your TV, computer, fridge etc into it. It would make TVs cheaper! (note: this would be absurdly impractical and expensive, but hey, cheaper TVs!)

 

[BurningNaturalGas]

You're being highly disingenuous, or at the very least, dismissing people who actually know what they're talking about when it comes to electrical equipment and electrical theory in favour of some conspiracy that the EU made decisions based on some nefarious need to be "other" rather than adapting to the reality of the European electrical grid.

You're also floating ideas that have been readily disproven as impractical and expensive in this continued anti-EU rant and you're not even internally logically consistent.

There's a reason the EU went with the Type 2 connector. There's a reason you can't just short out L1, L2 and L3 conductors to make trivial single phase converters. There's a reason we use on-board inverters in BEVs and have the supply equipment provide AC line voltage in either 1ph or 3ph flavours. There's a reason that CCS (in both Type 1 and Type 2 guises) is preferred over Chademo.

All of these things have been explained in detail, including the practical and economic reasons, but you still think it's some grand machiavellian scheme by Germany to personally piss off people who bought cars with Type 1 and/or Chademo connectors and that a council fitting tethered Type 2 chargers in a country where Type 2 sockets have been standard in all but a couple of early-adopter cases is some part of the master plan.

Should DC rapid charging be more robust? Absolutely. But the problem of having the charger off-board and needing to appropriately connect, negotiate and charge any DC traction pack is not trivial, especially at high rates of charge.

Would it be nice if all possible AC connectors were supported everywhere? Of course, but we standardised around a connector that had tangible benefits for the EU.

Is it unfortunate that Chademo was not adopted by everyone? No, definitely not. There are benefits to CCS that Chademo could not easily match.

The "solutions" that you propose (everyone has their own HT DC charger at every charge location!) are simply not at all feasible if the goal is better interoperability, lower costs and more robust charging networks. It's also absurdly reinventing the wheel for no good reason when every property in the UK is supplied with AC power.

Maybe we should mandate that all electrical devices are supplied as DC-only and then have all the HT rectification done in-wall so you can plug your TV, computer, fridge etc into it. It would make TVs cheaper! (note: this would be absurdly impractical and expensive, but hey, cheaper TVs!)

In this thread you (and others) clarified some points that I did not understand, and where appropriate I clicked the pretty green tick icon in response. I have been educated on 3 phases, and I came to the view that 1 phase is perfectly adequate. Incidentally, I recall a massive consumer unit in my house when I lived in mainland Europe. I had steps to reach the upper fuses and I saw no tangible benefit, just a lot more gubbins, and plugs that sparked.

I disagree with the focus of your argument because I actually think the current trajectory of faster AC charging is a rabbit hole in waiting: Beyond vanity I see no credible case for having rapid charging installed in every house because cars are not programmed to become emotionally bored when left to charge while their owners rest: Our rest (dinner, sleep, shower, etc.) probably translates into >10 hours for undisturbed car charging. It has been explained to me that drawing on 1 phase to charge a car in the EU would take a long time, but 10 hours is a long time. Some owners of big EVs will cry foul, but if someone can afford a big EV then they can afford a big charger to go with it: The socially more significant priority is the public benefit of rapid charging on-route in the exact same places where we have petrol stations, toilets, and coffee shops (where we are accustomed to stopping ~20 minutes). If charging networks provided a public benefit then nobody would actually need to trickle charge over an hour at destinations because there would be a working rapid within 2 miles.

I disagree with your assertion that DC charging a car is inherently bad, and it strikes me as hypocritical of you to take such a position given your (unspecified) defence of CCS. EV networks have had a decade to maintain working rapid DC charging points near every petrol station, they have failed, and we have let them off the hook by being customers bickering over, or customers confused by, the various charging standards. God forbid any body be divisive enough to release a CCS1 and a CCS2... oh, too late!

Overall though I view arguments over Type 1 or Type 2, and CHAdeMO or CCS1 or CCS2, and GB/T or CHAdeMO-compatible Tesla, as red herrings. I don't really care, except that there needs to be a very good reason to drop a standard that is already in play because interoperability across the network (of which we are all a part) is necessary for advancement, while dividing the network into competing groups disrupts progress. Unlike the seatbelt competition that started in 1959 and ended with Volvo benevolently saving lives in all cars, or the 1980s Betamax/VHS fair market competition, our current EV plug differences are the product of career policy makers and wealthy lobbying groups strategising for their trading bloc's geopolitical influence instead of helping EV buyers cut emissions and save the planet.

We need to stop playing musical chairs and instead maintain a static cohesive network.

BS1363/Schuko compatible garden socket on every home, and a CHAdeMO with contactless payment within 2 miles of every home, would be a lot cheaper and a lot more effective than the incompatible muddle of sparsely distributed broken chargers we currently have. This is not an anti-EU rant: It is instead acknowledgement of the negative consequences of misguided EU policy interventions.

Furthermore, there is a very real benefit to adopting and endorsing a global standard led by volume sales without politicised market protectionism because vehicles cross borders (even if just for an initial sale). If you travel to geopolitically weaker states today you will observe inside ordinary homes the multitudes of incompatible plugs and sockets spanning centuries of competing standards (often with burned edges and other signs of overheating) because those regions unfortunately sit between the boundaries of geopolitical heavyweights: Those regions reuse old standard and import the widest muddle of new standards for use on their one domestic supply. Following on from the EU's mission (linked above), the EU's achieved differences will manifest as increased complexity in geopolitically weaker regions for hundreds of years. Designing new standards is blind vanity that inflicts avoidable complexity and economic deprivation on the planet, and who pays to fix that? The UN, the IMF?