Evolution

Charging connectors can be a bit confusing, especially if you don't understand their history/evolution.

Charging connectors can be a bit confusing, especially if you don't understand their history/evolution. Like many technologies, it seems unnecessarily complex because it is -- if we were designing ground up, knowing what we know now, it would be much simpler. But it evolved, and had to have backwards compatibility, and we made mistakes.

ℹ️ Info

~ Aristotle Sabouni
Created: 2021-07-04

1996

GM's EV1 was first modern EV in 1996 with Delco developed "Magne Charge" (J1773 connector), it was an inductive charging paddle system that was slow, safe, and would work submerged in water. It never got widespread adoption and is dead tech.

It was 1.2Kw standard, or 6.6kW optional charging - it took up to 24 hours to charge the 60-mile range EV1. The Chevy Electric S-10 pickup and Toyota RAV-4 EV pilot programs also used that connector for a while. GM (Chevrolet): Press Release

2001

California (CARB) wanted to push EV's and supported the SAE designed the J1772 SAE connector in 2001... with a 2006 target for release. It wasn't really used until 2012 with the plug-in Hybrid Chevy Volt.

The 2011 Nissan Leaf did have the J1772 on their low end model, but it too 8 hours to charge to the 74 mile range Leaf. And their higher trims had a CHAdeMO connector which could charge the car in 30 minutes. It worked for the Volt as well, but that had only a 35 mile range (going up to 50 in later models), and a dimunative 16 kW battery.

2003

Tesla was founded on 2003, and they had the 2008 roadster with it's own connector. But in 2012 Tesla added the Model S. J1772's anemic 19.2 kW charging was too slow, so Tesla invented their own connector and created SuperCharging at 100 kW (that could scale up to 1,000 kW). They also implemented the first SuperCharging network for their cars, that is still the largest/fastest/most reliable out there.

Tesla roadster (Darkstar) in 2008 was a small little Lotus sized car, and only 2,450 units were made (low volume) and a 53kWh battery (good for 244 mile range). It was a good proof of concept, learning platform -- but the goal was always a practical ICE replacement. The Model S was a full sized sedan, their and up to 100 kW battery. And to increase practicality, Tesla needed to introduce a SuperCharging network to fill that battery quick enough to make it practical for road trips and inter-city travel. So they created their Connector with 150Kw DC SuperCharging.

2011

CHAdeMO - Nissan came our with their 74 mile range Leaf EV, and it had the J1772 in California and could recharge in 8 hours. Or you could use the optional CHAdeMO upgrade that allowed for 30 minute charging, and was adopted as the standard in Japan. But they're moving on to CCS as well.

Japan's dense cities and shorter commutes means smaller battery requirements -- thus Nissan Leaf had small batteries/range (24kWh/73 miles) than all purpose ICE replacement (what Tesla was competing with). In the U.S. the Leaf became popular as a 2nd short range commuter car, or City Car (for short urban trips). The lower requirements still needed a fast(er) charge option than anemic J1772, so the Japanese create CHAdeMO (CHArge de MOve) connector. It wasn't quite "SuperCharging" (100 kW), but it was Faster Charging; 50 kW in theory but only 22 kW by the implementation. It meant than instead of 8-hour charges, you could do 30 minute fast-charges to get home. When Tesla and others came out with SuperChargers, CHAdeMO did play specsmanship games to "keep up" with Tesla or CCS's DC SuperCharging... on paper. (v2 could do 200-400Kw, with 800Kw possible). However, they weren't implemented or deployed as widely (or at all), because few of their cars needed or took advantage of it. So CHAdeMO or short range EVs makes sense in Asia, or as a Urban get-about. But less so for any inter-city driving. And even their manufacturers are moving to CCS1 or 2 in other markets.

2012 CCS wanted SuperCharging as well, so they stuck a couple of optional DC pins on the bottom of J1772 (U.S. / Type 1) or Mennekes connector (EU / Type 2), to copy what Tesla was doing.

2015 GB/T is harder to Research. Basically, it feels like China copied the rest of the world, but wanted to be different. It's a little better than CCS in that it integrates DC and AC into one connector. Yet, it just just seems to be be different for the sake of being different.

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Charging
Charging has a lot of confusing specs and tradeoffs. They aren't difficult, it's just that you're unfamiliar with them.

Tags: Electric Vehicles/Charging