EV Chargers Explained - they're really dumb devices!

Regarding EVs in general: I like them, and would never argue against buying one, but at the level of national energy policy, does it really make sense to encourage them over the next thirty years? From an engineering management point of view, adding all that demand to a grid and base load system that we are trying to modernize and push towards carbon neutrality seems like a bad idea. Hybrids and small engines seem like a better bridge policy...in an ideal world. Ahem...🤓🙄

That is correct!

Jeremy Whaling

Great video demystifying a crucial part of our future transportation infrastructure. A fascinatingly elegant part of EVs is how the wall charger essentially dumps power into the regenerative braking output, which goes into the battery charger. And given a 3500 lb car, each MPH equals about 158 Joules or 0.044 watt-hours, it's easy to see how some cars equate wall charging rates to deceleration charging rates. It makes me want to retrofit old hybrids by swapping engines for batteries and installing charging ports.

Stephen Gillie

Isn't there another safety feature where the car has a diode across the signal pin with the square wave, so only half the wave results, That way if the plug is dropped in water or has another fault that happens to mimic the cars charge request resistance, the wall unit won't connect power?

Bill

I dont believe code allows for instillation of a double insulated cord inside of a conduit. the conductor is unable to dissipate the heat. a better and cheaper solution is to run stranded 10 ga thhn in pvc conduit 3/4" sch 40. if the run is under 100 ft 10 ga is sufficient for 30 amp 2 pole. if longer than 100 ft run up size to 8 ga. should still be under 80% fill in 3/4 conduit

Jacob Tyler Hooyman

It is likely to be deadly in the USA if you're black and holding the plug

Galen Thurber

"EV Chargers cause cancer, autism, ..." wait for the loons to push for banning these

Galen Thurber

So dumb they vote red.

Galen Thurber

PS screw blue LEDs

Galen Thurber

show me your equipment in a new light

Galen Thurber

The "ventilation required" signal was inherited from the original AVCON connector which was used for vehicles with, as you mentioned, lead-acid batteries. The signaling wasn't changed for J1772.

binaryfox

Another interesting thing about some of these fancy switches. Some of them can be plugged to either 120V (hot/neutral) OR 240V (hot/hot). The Prius Prime comes with a 110V charge cable, but by using an adaptor cable it works just fine with a NEMA 6-50 and charges the car in slightly less than half the time. BUT Toyota disavows all knowledge of this interchangeability. They just use the same controller, but put a different plug on it for North America and Europe. And of course they use a different "model" number. And THAT is the reason one of the pins is labelled L2/N. Because the car don't care. AC is AC either way, but on a 110 cable, that would be the N.

Peter Holley

My response is that this is an extremely small hassle compared to going to a fueling station. It becomes second nature as just a thing you do when you get home, and it takes mere seconds. It's way less work than just unloading groceries from your car. So I don't really see it as "yet another thing to plug in."

Technology Connections

Question to EV enthusiasts here: my biggest gripe with an EV is having to plug it in. Isn't it extremely annoying to having to plug in _one more thing_? I already hate to keep my phone topped up all the time, now you want me to be crazy about plugging in the car? Right now when I arrive home I just walk out of the car and walk into the house. Why on earth I would want to deal with ports and cables. Same with driving away. Just sit down and go. Thoughts?

rozboris

What's the point of a neutral, though? I responded to someone in YouTube comments about this, and while I think that, sure, there's something to be said for the use of them in RV park hookups, I don't see how it would be beneficial in a permanent installation.

Technology Connections

Please 14-50. This needs to be the standard US 240 volt connector. 6-50 is for welders, it needs to go away.

Paul Malloy

My first thought on seeing the thumbnail: "That is the weirdest urinal..."

Circuitmike

One great reason to put the charging port in the garage is that in large cities like SF this equipment tends to "walk away" if left outside unattended. The cables for sure are fair game. I used to think the charging port would be fine, I mean who would open something under power, then I realized the home mains panel is often located outside, for everyone to abuse easily.

Raphaël

The thing that seems insane to me is that a lot of people use these outdoors and there is nothing stopping random people from pulling into your driveway for a couple hours while you're at work and plugging in. There is no authentication so there can be no access control. Some people put the control head in the garage and then run the cord under the garage door so they can turn off the charger and still have outdoor access, but then the cord is subject to accelerated wear.

nobody

I liked the one last dig in the smooth jazz caption :D

Michael Dunn

The main issue is Supercharging. Adapters exist in both directions for level 2 charging, but a CCS to Tesla SC adapter does not exist and likely can't. The North American CCS standard from my understanding forbids adapters because some chargers are so high powered they require active cooling. There are adapters in use in the EU so I don't know if that limitation is really there or not. Basically, at this point, Tesla could start putting CCS combo-connectors on their cars but they're unlikely to do so as long as the Supercharger network remains exclusive to them. From my perspective it seems certain that they're holding onto their proprietary connector for pretty much that reason only.

Technology Connections

I think I could have done with a definition of "charger" before you went into why an EVSE is *not* a charger. I'm also still a bit confused about the world of teslas and adapters: there's an adapter for charging a non-tesla car with a tesla charger? what about the other way around - can you buy a standard charger and then use it with a tesla car? if there are adapters, why is the tesla semi-walled garden so bad for standardization?

When you navigate away from the video (and nav back) and the *captions* have arrived! Much appreciated!

Avid Stan

In the memorable words of an earlier version of Alec: "A format war's a-brewin'..." Does one choose the Tesla Betamax or the J1772 VHS? At any rate, this was a very informative video and I second your opinion of the Weber State videos. "Go (checks Wikipedia) Wildcats!"

Mark Hesse

Please do add this Alec <3

TheEdgeOfRage

When i drove a tesla S rental a few years ago it had a standard european type 2 plug (without DC port) for charging. It switches to a different pinout when using tesla (DC) supercharging AFAIK

Sebastian K.

So, forgive my presumptuousness here, but what exactly is the firmware that's running on these and why on Earth would it need to be upgraded ever? I get the point for Gen 3, but *especially* for Gen 1 what functionality is being added to it that the car can't just manage?

Technology Connections

Absolutely. Has been from the beginning. And I say that with disdain for Apple's obstinacy against adopting industry standards. I do cut Tesla a break, though, for one reason: Tesla installed the Supercharger network at enormous cost to itself and operates it essentially at break-even (or even at a loss on the older Tesla vehicles that have free supercharging for life). If Tesla were to start installing/retrofitting Superchargers with CCS connectors, then non-Tesla cars would start charging at Superchargers, and that would be a disservice to Tesla's customers, who ostensibly paid a premium for the privilege of exclusive access to the Supercharger network. I suppose Superchargers could simply refuse to charge non-Tesla vehicles, but then what would be the point of switching to CCS connectors?

Matt Whitlock

That "ehhhhhhh" was mightly hilarious 🤣 I'm totally gonna use that as a meme from now on, and it'll be hard to think of you without seeing that in my head... EDIT: It even starts right on a keyframe, how convenient 😁

Kilrah

Tesla owner here. The Tesla Wall Connector (even the Gen 1) can actually receive firmware updates *from the car*, so there must be some additional signaling happening through the cable beyond just what J1772 prescribes.

Matt Whitlock

Well for Tesla, apparently the Model 3 sold in Europe has a CCS connector, not a Tesla connector, while the Model S and X still have a Tesla connector. So apparently Tesla can be convinced to switch eventually. Not the same CCS connector used in north america, but at least there is a standard in each region. Of course the european one supports 3 phase AC charging, not just 1 phase.

Lennart Sorensen

Just wanted to let you know that here in Ireland our national utility is by far the largest provider of public charging. We have charge points in many, many locations and it does indeed just add the charge costs to our home electricity bill. We don’t have much of an EV market here yet but we certainly have a really strong start to the kind of public charging infrastructure you called for!

Great video! When you want to do a video on DC charging, reach out to me. I work for EVgo and would love to help in any way I can.

Jeremy Whaling

So Tesla is the Apple of EVs.

Simon Mikkelsen

Volty you may want to look up ISO 15118, it is a newer standard which does allow vehicle to station communications over the wire using PLC communications (same as CCS). It’s a bit of a heavy protocol and most cars don’t support it yet but it is coming and should help for L2 load management. Of course for DC there’s already communications and the station does know things like SOC and battery size but most of the time DC is used for quick charging so load management isn’t really used or desired.

Jeremy Whaling

cost -- patent/tech licensing and LIABILITY INSURANCE

Sierra Mistystep

You're correct that currently J1772 is essentially a one-way communication protocol. However, you might have gotten a glimpse of the "hilltop reserve" function of the Bolt - that's for exactly the sort of scenario you're describing. I think that in most cases, it's better to solve those sorts of things on the car side, but there definitely are cases where two-way comms would be helpful. It looks like that may be coming in the future, but we'll have to see. For what it's worth, the CCS connection does have two-way communication, too. It's not unique to CHAdeMO.

Technology Connections

One thing that irritates me is that J1772 has only very rudimentary communication from the vehicle to the external charger control circuit: to the very best of my understanding, a J1772-based charger has no way of knowing how full the battery of the receiving vehicle is. People living on top of a hill or mountain who charge to 100% thus can’t regenerate on the way down the hill because that recuperated energy has nowhere to go, causing waste: energy is converted to heat by friction braking and heat is vented into the environment. Unless the vehicle itself allows users to configure a maximum desired charge level, users have to pre-calculate expected charge times if they want to avoid charging above, say, 80%. And the home charging station (aka EVSE) can’t help because it doesn’t know the battery level. Compare that to DC fast charging with, say, the bulky CHAdeMO, where much more communication happens, allowing the vehicle to report the actually state of charge to the charging station - but that’s not a home use scenario.

volty

Missed opportunity to get ElectroBoom to say "FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER" at 5:45.

Quinton Wilson