• • • ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT • • •
HANDBRAKE OFF: DEMYSTIFYING
HIGH-POWERED CHARGING As I write, I’m reading the latest EV sales figures in the UK. September saw a
record high for pure battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales; 72,779 were sold, with fully electric or hybrid sales making up more than half of all new car registrations. It’s the best September for car sales this decade By Andreas Atkins, Head of UK&I, IONITY
here are approximately 1.7 million plug-in electric vehicles on UK roads now. The government has just allocated £38m for 319 electric busses while in the private sector, Amazon is in the process of rolling out its largest ever electric fleet of 160 heavy goods vehicles. In other words, the electric vehicle revolution is not coming, it’s already here. A decade ago, you’d notice the distinctive bubbled shape of the BMW i3 as something weird and distinctive in central London. Now, every other car you pass seems to have the distinctive green mark on its numberplate.
T
• How do we know where to deploy HPC compared to other charging options?
• How do we know that grid connections are not being under or over sized at certain sites?
• How do we strike the balance between these things whilst also ensuring these sites are investments not just for now, but for the future?
Let’s take these questions one by one. Isn’t HPC overkill for
typical urban usage? HPC isn’t designed for overnight or long-term charging, it’s intended to enable long-distance travel quickly, allowing long-distance travellers to entirely recharge their vehicle in an unintrusive amount of time.
Power up
It goes without saying that EVs need access to chargers at home, in the city, on the motorway, or wherever your destination is. Providers are doubling down in key areas, and expanding into underrepresented ones, to ensure that EVs can travel across the continent without friction. There’s a huge spectrum of charging types, from trickle-charging through home or lamppost chargers to high powered charging (HPC), including the ultra-rapid hardware that can fully replenish an electric car in minutes. These can deliver over 100kW or more. At IONITY we use chargers that can deliver at speeds up to 400kW, while Alpitronic HYC1000 models can deliver up to 600 kW. The envelope is being pushed all the time, and it won’t be long til we see the first 1000 kW units on UK roads.
This means that, when chargers are installed, it’s hugely important to consider whether the best solution is HPC or something else:
This same technology is also appropriate for urban areas where fleets, taxis, commercial vehicles and private EVs also need quick turn around in fuelling their car or van. Some fleet operators have told us that HPC is a precondition for them switching to EVs, as they can’t turnaround vehicles effectively otherwise. Trickle chargers are likely to be a more sensible economic option for everyday use, as HPC is more expensive. But if you’re travelling at distance or using major roadways, running a business that demands a quick turnaround, or even living a busy urban life and need to squeeze in a charge whilst you do the shopping, HPC is a technology in the EV charging ecosystem that makes your schedule possible.
What happens to the extra power that cars can’t use? Are we wasting it?
While it’s true that not all vehicles on the road can charge at the highest HPC speeds today, we are building a charging system for the future. The same was said 7 years ago when IONITY first came to market with 350 kW chargers. Now this is seen as the norm. Regardless of vehicle restrictions, HPC still dramatically reduces the dwell time of each vehicle vs. That means more vehicles per day, per charger,
28 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING • DECEMBER/JANUARY 2026
How do we know that HPC will be used regularly in the longer term?
Nearly all next-gen EV platforms, from Volkswagen’s SSP to GM’s Ultium, are being engineered for charging between 150-350kW. As these vehicles enter the market, they’ll push down the costs of older vehicles, making luxury cars with higher charging capacity much more financially realistic to the average consumer.
ZapMap data has found that by 2027, more than 50 per cent of the UK EV fleet is expected to be compatible with 150kW, particularly fleet vehicles and taxis. HPC doesn’t typically prioritise short- distance travel, just yet! But it’s futureproofing our roadways in the same way that fibre-optic cable futureproofed internet speeds.
Handbrake off
The EV market is going to continue to grow rapidly for a long time. The industry in the UK is one of the most successful in Europe, and when we look to countries leading EV development, like China, we can see that more exciting innovations are coming. Those vehicles will need infrastructure worthy of their capabilities. HPC is not the be-all and end-all of vehicle charging, but it does occupy an important space in the spectrum of the electric vehicle charging ecosystem available to all of us. If we get the right mix, blending local charging options that we own or use regularly with higher- powered alternatives, we’ll be able to support the EV revolution for years to come.
https://www.ionity.eu electricalengineeringmagazine.co.uk
it means higher revenue per plug and lower queuing pressure on charge points. We’ve previously conducted research on charge point utilisation that has found HPC stations achieve 35-40 per cent higher utilisation by the number of users per hour, despite fewer vehicles being able to use the max rate. With the expense of land and power in the UK, it’s incredibly important to boost economic efficiency at scale. HPC sites deliver that in spades.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
