jeanloup
Established Member
Hi folks,
I'm trying to understand the differences between all types of chargers and on the surface it seems the main difference is how fast electrons flow into the battery. Thus slow (7KWh) < fast (22KWh) < rapid (50KWh).
However, when I connect to a slow charger at work (at least back when this was possible) I'd get an average of about 5.6KWh. I appreciate the car can only take so much AC power so you'll never get the full 7KWh. However for "fast" chargers, although the car is capped at 10 or 11KWh, I'd still expect faster rates than those from a slow charger when plugged in to those so I was really confused when my charging session on Tuesday at a fast charger only drew an average of 4.2KWh. This was a bay of 4 with, as far as I could tell, no one else plugged in (I wasn't keeping an eye on the car the whole time). While the work slow chargers are a row of 6 with often all chargers being in use.
I know DC will vary greatly depending on the state of your battery when you first plug in (something I'm still not understanding) so getting the full 50KWh from a rapid charger is not likely to happen much. But my experience with AC seems to be that the flow rate varies very little over time once you're plugged in, I'm just not sure why "fast" chargers get slower than slow ones. If anyone has a straightforward explanation I'd be grateful, thanks
I'm trying to understand the differences between all types of chargers and on the surface it seems the main difference is how fast electrons flow into the battery. Thus slow (7KWh) < fast (22KWh) < rapid (50KWh).
However, when I connect to a slow charger at work (at least back when this was possible) I'd get an average of about 5.6KWh. I appreciate the car can only take so much AC power so you'll never get the full 7KWh. However for "fast" chargers, although the car is capped at 10 or 11KWh, I'd still expect faster rates than those from a slow charger when plugged in to those so I was really confused when my charging session on Tuesday at a fast charger only drew an average of 4.2KWh. This was a bay of 4 with, as far as I could tell, no one else plugged in (I wasn't keeping an eye on the car the whole time). While the work slow chargers are a row of 6 with often all chargers being in use.
I know DC will vary greatly depending on the state of your battery when you first plug in (something I'm still not understanding) so getting the full 50KWh from a rapid charger is not likely to happen much. But my experience with AC seems to be that the flow rate varies very little over time once you're plugged in, I'm just not sure why "fast" chargers get slower than slow ones. If anyone has a straightforward explanation I'd be grateful, thanks