'A third-party industry has sprung up marketing converters and adaptors to allow drivers to charge their cars from any charging station, although the charging rates achieved over such adapted connections may not be as high as when using the native connector.'


The Type 1 connector, mainly used in Asia, is a single- phase AC charging plug that supports charging powers of up to 7.4kW. Type 2 plugs support three-phase AC charging, at up to 22kW in private settings such as a home garage, and up to 43kW at public charging stations. CCS plugs add two more contacts to a Type 2 plug for fast charging, enabling AC and DC charging powers of up to 170kW. The CHAdeMO connector allows for charging powers up to 50kW, while Tesla uses a modified version of the Type 2 Mennekes plug to enable its proprietary fast-charging approach. Interestingly, given the importance of the Chinese market, Tesla and others are starting to fit a GB/T fast-charging socket alongside their standard sockets.


As you might expect, a third-party industry has sprung up marketing converters and adaptors to allow drivers to charge their cars from any charging station, although the charging rates achieved over such adapted connections may not be as high as when using the native connector.


The component opportunity


The automotive industry is vast, producing close to 100 million vehicles year, and the transition to EVs offers huge opportunities to reshape it, for example through the emergence of new market entrants in China, a possible shift away from vehicle ownership to mobility as a service, and the potential for integrating vehicles into the power grid.


ELECTRIC CAR PLUG TYPES TYPE 1 PLUG


Single-phase plug used in car models from the Asian region.


TYPE 2 PLUG Triple-phase plug considered to be the standard model in Europe.


Technology review


All this change creates huge scope for component makers to sell their existing parts and to innovate to enable new opportunities. For example, simply making the power devices used for in-vehicle rectification more efficient will have an immediate effect on the utility of an EV by enabling faster AC charging. More effective filtering will be needed to damp down high-power spurious signals. Connector design, as previously discussed, will become a key gating factor on charging rates and hence people’s perceptions of the practical range of an EV.


All these innovations will have to meet rapidly evolving national and international standards, and be expressed in components that are delivered globally, in volume, to strict automotive safety and quality specifications. And as EVs take over from fossil-fuel vehicles, and our transport moves inexorably closer to consumer- electronics market perceptions and timescales, that means that component development and qualification will have to accelerate to match. It’s going to be a hard-fought race to EV market dominance.


GB/T PLUG


Similar to the Type 2 plug but with additional male connectors.


CCS PLUGS


Enhanced version of the Type 2 plug, with


additional power contacts for quick charging.


Car makers have come up with different standards for the type of plug used to recharge their electric cars. (Source: The Mobility House) 31


CHADEMO PLUGS Quick charging system developed in Japan.


TESLA SC PLUG


Modified version of the Type 2 Mennekes plug.


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