Electric car: charging standards

The standardisation of public charging points for electric vehicles, is for sure a key passage for the spreading of this kind of vehicles and for the better optimizatin of the charging system: the electric user should be able to find anywhere a charging plug suitable to his needs.

Up to date, charging points have been standardised in several countries, including Italy.

A clear and defined legislation

• Normal power recharging points in alternating current (AC), which means for powers lower than 2 kW, must have the Mennekes – Type 2 plug (as described by the standard EN62196-2).
  The geometry of the Type 2 plug and connector is the same for power ranging from 3,7 to 4,4 kW in AC, both single-phase and three-phase, the connector configuration in addition to power transfer allows the data communication towards the contacts “controlpilot” and “proximity”.
• For the recharge point defined “High power”, which means bigger than 22 kW, are provided: the Alternating Current mode always with Type 2 connector; and Direct Current (DC) with a combined connector called “Combo 2” as described in the standard EN62196-3 or CHAdeMO.

Charging times depend on two factors

An electric car charging time depends on the power available in the charging station and from the “level” or battery charge status. For example, a car with 30 kW battery capacity discharged at 70%, with a charging capacity of 11 kW will take 2 hours to fully charge.

Free of charge charging stations and against payment

Today, a lot of charging stations for electric vehicles are free. However, in the market, there are already different solutions to manage the payment for the provision of the service: users can pay directly to banknote or debit card acceptors, or they can sign their own credit card and then pay with an App.