[Gabor27]

Good evening!
I'm Gábor Szalai from Hungary and I'm thinking about buying a 2nd hand Zoe.
However I have some special circumstances that (as I'm aware of) the ZOE doesn't like. I have 25A single phase at home but as of my current knowledge Zoe charges really inefficently from one phase. Also I'm an electrical engineer (so as my father) and we came up with a circuit that takes single phase AC and spits out sinusodial three phase AC (120 degrees apart of course). The catch is that it only can do it at 6A/phase (because of the high input current requirements) (wich is in line with the EVSE protocol's minimum allowable current).
What I could gather from the forums is that the "Q" motor variants can't really be charged bellow 12A but the "R" variants can.
How low can the "R" variant reliably go? Is there anyone who can test it out? (3-phase would be awesome but I'm also very thankful for single phase tests!)

Thanks in advance!
Have a nice day

 

[cah197]

They charge at 10Amps in the UK. But the losses are about 25%.

Personally I'd try and keep the charge above 16-20 Amps.

 

[cDy]

The ZOE charges inefficiently at low currents. You can find info for single phase at Charger efficiency and for 3 phase at Charger efficiency part 2 (3 phase).

I guess that in your circumstances you will be best running at single phase 16A or above, rather than 3 phase at 6A.

 

[yoh-there]

ZOE is NOT particularly inefficient at low currents. It is relatively ineffective though since it is a fairly large capacitive load. There is no way creating your own three fases will in any conceivable way more efficient. Please abandon the idea

Charger efficiency part 2 (3 phase)

Set point current (A)Power battery (W) *)Power AC (W)Current AC (A)Power efficiency (%)32196042150731.5291.228170741868127.4091.424147141608023.5991.520120221306019.26 **)92.11692311012015.5692.213…

canze.fisch.lu

Charger efficiency

A lot has been written, assumed, wrongly (and rightly) measured and interpreted about the efficiency of the charger. The biggest problem has always been that the big capacitors in the the charger f…

canze.fisch.lu

The R models can go down to about 6 A, but that would be really unpractical

Charging and cosphi

Dutch forum member, Q210 driver and multifuntion charger builder “fivari”, posted this table today, stating charging behavior of the Q210 on a single phase line under chargepoint power …

canze.fisch.lu

If I were you I would opt for a dynamic charger, i.e. a Zappi, that will set your car at the highest maximum charge current without ever overloading your mains.

For reference, I charge my Q210 on single phase 16A, on a 40A single phase grid connection.

 

[Gabor27]

Thank you and everyone for the really-really quick reply!
Mr.(/Ms.) Yoh-there: thank you for the statistics regarding charging efficency and effectiveness! It's quite a good and well written piece of information
Since my original idea seems impractical, let's switch to theoretical. I would like to understand more in the topic so if ZOE is charging on:
1ph @10A --> efficency = 69%
3ph @10A --> efficency = 87%.
So it would mean that no matter the (per phase) current, charging on 3ph is always more efficent.
I'm curious: Is 1ph @10A as efficent as 3ph @6A? How much is the difference? Wich is more efficent?
Regarding Zappi charger: I'm always charging at night (although I have a 5kWp system)

 

[yoh-there]

If you always charge at night, I would simply put it on 16A (or a bit more) and forget about the whole thing. It works (it's what I do for 7 years now ). Just don't switch on the washer too.

It's hard to say if, at the same power level, 3 phases is more or less efficient than 1 phase as the operation mode is different: in 3 phase mode the charger is a buck converter, in 1 phase mode a boost converter. Guts feeling says it could be slightly more efficient in 3 phase, but that is not substantiated by any measurement or theory.

If you click through the links in those blog posts I send you there is more info on how things work, both theoretically as practically. Oh well, I bet you already did

 

[Gabor27]

I'd gladly read through anything technical
I'm sure there is much more to know than I've already read. A technical Zoe owner (like you) knows much more about where to find interesting articles about the car's technical details so if you wouldn't mind directing me to some interesting posts/sites, I would be even more thankful!

 

[yoh-there]

Well to be honest, most on the CanZE website is from my hand. What I learn I usually put there ;-) So an SSP (Shameless Self Plug). There are quite a few techies on Renault ZOE • Renault - Elektroauto Forum and Forum Renault Zoé Z.E., though (like on any forum), you will find some rather aggressive individuals.

 

[Gabor27]

Thank you I'll read through the CanZE site just by curiousity

Have a nice day!