What are electric car charging stations? Read to know more about EV charging stations.
Cars are an important mode of transportation in the modem world. Petrol cars are common all over the world so petrol bunks. Whatever may be the vehicle, they need energy source move from one place to another. Electric vehicles (Battery, Hybrid, and Plug-in Hybrid) started to enter the automotive market as a result of increased pollution from conventional vehicles and depletion of fossil fuels. Electric car charging stations are also getting established since the arrival of Electric Cars to the vehicle market.
EV Charging – Blog series
This is first part of EV charging blog series. Please navigate to other posts in the series here
Charging stations are those infrastructures provide electricity to charge an electric vehicle. EV manufacturers have already set up charging stations and developed standards for charging.
#1 Different types of Electric Car Charging Stations
Petrol cars travel a relatively longer distance than electric cars with tank full petrol. One of the disadvantages of the electric vehicle is their reduced range.
So charging stations are necessary at public places to recharge the batteries of Electric Cars.
A broad classification of Electric car charging stations would be as below
Home-based charging station
The primary charging facility of an electric car is home-based. When you buy an electric car it’s always necessary to have a battery charger at home. Overnight slow charging of electric vehicle is a highly used method to charge an electric car.
Home-based charging doesn’t have a metered connection and dedicated wiring as public charging stations do.
Public charging station
An electric vehicle has to be recharged if it runs out of charge while traveling a long distance. As gas stations for conventional vehicles, charging stations at public places would recharge the battery of an electric vehicle.
Private charging Station
Charging stations – those are free or paid installed at movies, malls, Office, etc. are generally termed as private charging stations. Private charging facilities can be slow or fast.
In addition to the services offered by hotels, shopping malls, they provide users a means to charge their vehicles as well.
Battery swapping
Battery swapping is a method in which a discharged battery is replaced with fully charged battery instantaneously so that to avoid the time taken to charge the battery.
Fuel cell vehicles and EVs use battery swapping for getting the battery fully charged in less than 15 minutes. Tesla motor planned to install battery swapping in their fast-charging stations in 2013. Later they called off the battery swapping project to expand fast-charging stations.
#2 Electric Vehicle Charging Standards
Standardization of electric vehicle charging is necessary as the number of vehicles increases day by day. All the charging stations could not set up by the vehicle manufacturers.
It’s not always easy to find a charging station compatible with your vehicle. Standardization would solve the problem.
SAE international classified charging facilities as below
- Level 1 charging
- Level 2 charging
- Level 3 charging
1. Level 1 charging
Standard house outlet is being used to charge an electric vehicle and it’s comparatively slow. This is level 1 charging. Electric vehicles can be charged overnight using level 1 charger.
2. Level 2 charging
Level 2 chargers are similar to level 1 chargers usually installed at public locations. They take a short duration to charge an electric car. Level 2 chargers can use at home to charge EVs a little faster (4-6 hours).
3. Level 3 charging
Level 3 chargers are DC fast chargers that could recharge electric car battery in less than one hour (Tesla Model S 75). They can be deployed in electric charging stations and houses to charge the vehicle at a faster rate.
80% of the battery gets charged in 30 minutes and it takes a maximum of 1 hour to get fully charged.
IEC defines another set of standards for EV charging. Unavailability of the unique standard resulted in conflicts sometimes.
Charger standards fight confuses electric vehicle buyers, puts car company investments at risk
#3 Who Invests to set up the Charging stations
Do car manufacturers invest in charging stations? Yeah..they sometimes do. Home-based charging facilities may be provided by car manufacturers themselves.
But they haven’t started investing in public charging stations (Tesla is an exception). Other organizations set up charging stations following different standards.
A list of a few electric car charging station manufacturers is given below.
- Bosch Automotive Service Solutions
- ABB
- Schneider Electric
- Fuji Electric
- Seimens
There are a few charging network operators managing charging network from various manufacturers. Tesla Inc is an example of charging network operator.
Conclusion
Electric Car charging stations and their characteristics are briefed here. It necessitates common standard and huge investments in charging stations to get widespread acceptance of Electric Vehicles. What would you think of EV charging stations?
Please comment your views below and share the article 🙂
Next part: Vehicle to Grid (V2G) and Vehicle to Home (V2H)