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Rapid charging FAQ

Rapid charging FAQ:

Rapid Charging is charging over at a rate over 22kw. The only way to rapid charge either ZS EV or MG5 is via DC charging. AC charging is limited on both cars to 7kw.

The ZS EV can accept up to a maximum rate of 80kw via DC
The MG5 can accept up to a maximum rate of 80kw via DC

However the above charging rate is dictated by many variables: outside temperature, battery temperature, SoC (State of Charge %), Max Kw of DC charger, How many of DC chargers are in use, cars BMS software, DC’s chargers firmware and many more.

The fastest speeds are obtained when below 30% SoC with temps around 20c. The ZS EV should take 45mins in ideal conditions to charge from 0% to 80%, even though it’s unlikely that you will arrive with 0%.


What connector should I use?

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CCS connector (or the official name: SAE Combo 2). The two pins at the bottom on the ‘extension of type2’ of the connector is the DC negative and DC positive. That’s what provides the extra power. If the rapid charger doesn’t have (or broken) CCS but does have type 2, either drive to another rapid charger or get enough power to get to the next rapid (3ish miles added per 10min charge).

Remember - bigger the connector, bigger the POWER.

When one of the connectors of the charger is connected to a car, the other connectors on the same chager can not be used (99% of the time). So if a Nissan Leaf is using the chademo connector, you will NOT be able to use the CCS connector. Like when someone is using the diesel nozzle at the pertol station pump, you can't use the petrol nozzle on the same pump at the same time.


When multiple rapids might be quicker than DC to 100%

Both car’s charging rates drops at around 80%. Typically its takes the same time it does 0%-80% to do the final 80%-100%.

Example: Both cars are travelling at 60mph when driving (1 mile to minute). 1% = 1 mile to keep the maths simple. Car 1 – drives off at 80% at rapid charger. Car 2 – drives off at 100% at rapid charger. 0% to 80% takes 45mins, 80% to 100% takes 45 mins. First charger is 100miles away. Second charger 150 miles away. Home is 200 miles away.



Car 1
TimeSoCMiles coveredRange
0100%0100
1h 40m0%1000
2h 25m80%10080
3h 15m30%15030
3h 37m (22min charge)70% (40% added)15070
4h 27m20%20020
Car 2
TimeSoCMiles coveredRange
0100%0100
1h 40m0%1000
3h 10m100%100100
4h 50m0%2000

Therefore Car 1 is 23mins faster and still has 20% battery left. That’s a whole episode of Brooklyn Nine Nine and 20 miles range left (if we are using 1%=1 mile maths).


Rapid charging etiquette
  • Do not knowingly plug into AC charger when CCS DC is available. You will only get slow charging and stops cars like early Renault Zoes from charging as they can only charge with the AC charger.
  • Do not charge to 100%. See above.
  • Do not leave the car connected after it’s charged to 100%. Especially when most charge networks charge an overstay fee. And as the CCS connector is locked to the car, no-one can use the charger until you disconnect. If you have got to leave your car charging on a rapid charger for a long time, and it doesn’t have an overstay fee, leave a note with a way to contact you or stating a time when your getting back.
Starting rant….
  • Leaving your rubbish next to the charger. Take it home or use public bins if offered.
  • Parking in the rapid charging space when you are not charging. Do you park in a blue badge bay when you don’t have a blue badge? Do you park in the middle of your road when you get home or at work? No, then don’t park in the rapid charging bay when not charging…..
Rant over…


Planning a journey with rapid chargers

You could use the on-board sat-nav. Google maps and apple maps has primitive charger info. Or wing it on a prayer. Those three options are not recommend as there is no live data and could lead to a call to the AA or breakdown service (also remember if you keep your car serviced with a MG dealer in the UK, you get AA breakdown cover for free, so this can be an option).
Below are three apps, which shows on a map where the chargers are, which network, cost, and if available status of that charger. To keep this guide shorter, they going to be spilt off to separate articles.

Zap map – click HERE [WORK IN PROGRESS]

Plugshare – click HERE [WORK IN PROGRESS]

ABRP – click HERE [WORK IN PROGRESS]


Payment Options

This is mainly focused on the UK, but some payment options are worldwide or works in a manner that can be worldwide.

card-black.png
Contactless Bank Card
- Visa describes it as Look, Touch and confirm. Normally one tap to start the charge, and one tap to end the charge. Most chargers use this method, but there are chargers out there that does not (Ecotricity & GeniePoint). When using contactless bank card, be warned that when starting a charge, a pre-auth (reserve) is placed on your bank account, which can be around £30 or if your using Ionity, only £67. If the charge is somehow errors or unsuccessful, that pre-auth is locked on your bank account for up to 7days. This also happens at petrol stations and vending machines as well but they don’t often have issues.​

ApplePayGooglePaySamsungPayGraphics.png
Apple Pay/Samsung Pay/Google Pay
– Same as contactless bank card, but with a phone. Just make sure your phone has enough power to end the charge.​

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Network’s RFID Card
– Rather than using a bank card, most chargers can read an RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) card. The card is obtained from the network either free, at cost or under monthly subscription. The network will then hold some kind of billing information for you and when you tap your RFID card, they will bill you (or if there is no cost, not bill you) for the energy used.​

20210218_103824.jpg
Octopus Electric Juice Network RFID Card
– Same as a network’s RFID card, but instead of the network billing an account it holds, it sends that bill over to Octopus and they take the money from your electric bill. Only a select number of networks support this, but it does save creating separate accounts with those networks and a wallet full of RFID cards.​

Screenshot_20210218-093530_One UI Home.jpg
Network’s App
– This is the plastic-free option of the network’s RFID card. The app will talk to the network and the network will talk to the charger and the charger will start. Repeat the same steps to end charging. Billing options are stored in the app and network takes those and bills you.​

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Zap-Pay
– This is part of the Zap Map app, which allow certain network chargers to be used like network’s own app but with Zap Map app. The network passes payment over to Zap Map and they bill you inside Zap map. It is trying to reduce the number of apps you have, so that you have only need one app for billing and routing/planning.​

NYC-Transit-MTA-Tokens-Historic-Photo-Collection-NYC-7-copy.jpg
Token
– An old fashion method of timing the charge using a token bought from a local shop. This method is disappearing, mainly because its no longer allowed to charge for electricity by time. The higher costs of having physical tokens and that sometimes people find interesting methods to bypass the token, which makes the other payment options far better for networks.​

Direct billing via CCS – This is the concept that when you plug in the car, the charger and car talk to each other and sees there is an account attached to the cars VIN and directly bill the charge. At the moment, only one network and car manufacture has pull this off full scale, Tesla. At this present time, no charging network offer this in the UK for MG cars.​


Rapid Charging Networks [WORK IN PROGRESS]

This is mainly aimed at the UK people. Below is the main ones, but there is many different smaller networks in the UK as well. And I’m not going to write a travel guide to EU/Austrian rapid charger networks. I’m also not listing cost in this guide, so that it doesn’t have to be updated all the time.

BP Pulse – Formally known as Chargemaster or Polar. It does a mix of RFID and app for it’s 7kw AC chargers and RFID, app and contactless bank card for its rapid and ultra rapid chargers. It’s RFID card is locked as part of it’s subscription model, were you pay around £8 per month for the card, but also reduced cost at all there chargers. Some of there chargers are on ‘free vend’ (no cost) if you have their RFID card.​

Osprey formally know as Engenie. Changed there name to not associated from Geniepoint similar name. Charger use RFID, App, Zap-pay, Octopus Electric Network RFID, contactless bank card. I would be surprised if they didn’t look at cash as well, as they accept everything else.​

ChargePlace Scotland – A charging network only available on the better side of England’s North border (only joking English people 😘). Again can be accessed with an App or RFID. They charge £20 for their RFID card per year. Some chargers on there network are ‘free vend’ but this depends on local council. If not, they will bill you via direct debit for the charges with RFID.​

Ecar NI – The charging network only available in Northern Ireland.​

ESB Ecars – The charging network only available in Republic of Ireland.​

GeniePoint/Dragon Charging Network – Geniepoint runs a mainly rapid chargers, but they also do fast chargers. Also they operate the back-end of Dragon Charging Network in Wales. You can pay for a RFID card for £9 or use an app to access their network.​

InstaVolt – they have a contract with McDo, KFC and Bannatyne gyms to site their chargers at those places. Auto express’s Driver Power 2nd place for charging network 2020. They work most of the time. All chargers have contactless bank card payment. All the charges have CCS. That’s one big mac, large milkshake and 50kw of power please.​

Ecotricity – The first true rapid charge network in the UK. They still have many exclusive contracts at motorway service stations and IKEA, and it’s likely you will see an Ecotricity unit at the service station or IKEA. The biggest downside, over 50% of their chargers do NOT have CCS. And as most of their units had the CCS retrofitted into the units as they are old, they are patchy at best. They only work with their app, which often has a ropey connection at service stations. If the unit does loose connection to their network, they do allow the unit to go into 'free vend' mode, however it's often they don't work full stop or its a unit with no CCS.​

Pod Point – Pod point mainly does destination charging, 7kw-22kw AC with use of an App. When they do DC charging, they use the same units InstaVolt uses which are reliable and can use contactless card as well as app on them.​

Ionity – Only does rapids. 150kw chargers. The only downside, expensive. They reserve £69 on your card, and only costs 69p/KW when I wrote this... (I had to make an expemption on listing price here, it’s doubles InstaVolts price!). Ionity is a joint venture of BMW Group, Ford Motor Company, Hyundai Motor Group, Mercedes Benz AG and Volkswagen Group. Ionity is a newer entrant into the UK charging market and has a stronger focus on the EU market and do not own any petrol stations, unlike…​

Shell Recharge – Only one charger in Wales? Come on get your act together. They do have a larger network in England and Scotland. They use contactless bank card, RFID and app to allow payment of the charge.​

Tesla – Auto express’s Driver Power 1st place for charging network 2020. Most supercharges have CCS. A few have modified type 2 connectors. No superchargers work with MG or any other make of cars. They only work with Teslas. Just don’t do it. The Tesla fan boys will mock you if you plug in…​

Hopefully that covers 0%-80% of your questions….. Enjoy.
 
Last edited:
Again...thanks mate for this. Another slight point is that some chargers, like the park and ride near me have 1 big machine with 3 chargers on it. A CCS, a Chademo and a Type 2. It will not let you charge with both the Chademo and the CCS at the same time (even if one of them is free).
 
Aye...I have annoyed a few elec taxi drivers who have come to charge with Chademo and see me charging with CCS
 
@Dave S Gwent power did use tokens but been since replaced pre-paid RFID card and contactless. I bet there are a few out there that are still token based. Not sure if they used metel or plastic, so used very old subway tokens picture.

@RossN added. Thanks.

Thats the last edit until after Kanto tour...
 
Is there anyway to bypass the max AC charger when using a 22kw charger.

For instance a CCS adapter?

In short, no.

The reason being that for AC the charger is built into the car, the post just supplies the power to run it. So your car will only ever charge at the speed of the built in charger, i.e. 7kw.

For DC that entire cabinet is the AC/DC adaptor plus a few safety features, you'd never fit all that into a ccs connector.
 
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