Hopefully someone can help and answer this as I am at a loss. There is a car park near my work that has free EV chargers that you can use, just pay for parking. they are meant to give 22kw charging. I tried it with the cable that came with the car and got only 6.5kw so bought a 3 phase charging cable that is meant to achieve 22kw (at least that is what it was advertised at). tried it today and it still only gives me 6.5kw max. what am i missing? the car's charging setting is on max. the manual says to remove the cover under the charging port which I have done. Can't see anything else that I am missing. Thanks
Hi,
it is quite simple, but you won't like the answer. First of all one must be aware of the fact that the ONLY current that charges your car's main battery is DC, however you have people talking about AC and DC charging (when in reality it's ALL DC charging).
All EV Cars have an on board charger which converts the AC being fed to it to DC (this is the AC charging). It is the conversion rate of the on board charger that determines the DC rate you can charge at when receiving a charging source that is AC. Almost ALL EV car's max out at 11kwh when AC charging, so all the discussions about three phase cables required for using 22kvh chargers is irrevelant.
The only car (as mentioned already on other posts) that can make proper use of a 22kvh charger is the Renault Zoe). So unfortunately you cannot under any circumstances make proper use of the 22kvh charger, you will however still get the rate that your on board charger can provide.
To put DC charging into proper context this bypasses the car's (all car's) on board charger and feeds DC direct to the battery.
If it is any consultation it took me many years of using EVs before I became aware of this and quite frankly dealers should brief potential owners on ALL aspects of charging, but they won't because it will affect sales. Hope this helps!!!
Frank
Note: When you come across a 22kwh charger you will notice that is will be labelled as a AC Charger even though it uses a CCS end which is normally associated with DC charging that is because the current coming from the cable is AC and is being fed to the on board charger even though it is a CCS end it will be configured differently than a DC CCS plug.