True, a few years ago I was preparing my electric home installation for 50 KW in order to charge my future EV, and It can actually only draw 11 kw, which is still fine as some EV's can't even do that.
So my friend, I owe you a beer or two. I tried to use a BP Pulse charger the other day that bombed out and left my MG ZS EV not able to start. I'd seen a previous video of yours where this happened to you and you had a spanner to disconnect and reconnect the battery and I had bought one as a result of that. This saved the day for me, so a big thank you. If you are ever around Crawley let me know and I'll buy you that beer!
A good explanation. I have come across many new EV owners who pulled up at a rapid and removed the rubber cover to reveal the AC plug (just as they do at home) and arent aware there is the 2nd rubber cover just below covering the DC pins. As a result of the 3 connectors they can only physically connect and use the AC type 2 on the rapid!! A simple mistake that is easily made especially as the charge port on their car is black in colour and so are both rubber covers.
Really good video . On Zap-Map, 3 people in the last hour have made the AC 43kW blunder and reported a slow charge not realising the limitations of their EV. I’ve replied to them with a link to your video . I think it will help a lot of new EV owners.
I have been researching charging whilst waiting for my first EV and wish I'd seen this sooner! I've been trying to charge my car for the first time today, out and about, and flunked. Thanks for sharing this. It's really helpful.
I flunked three times in three different places before I found the right connection at a charging station that actually worked. Definitely a learning curve.
Thank you. I'm picking my first electric car up next week and I am slightly nervous about charging at public stations in case I get it wrong and either do damage or make a fool of myself. This is very helpful.
You’ll be absolutely fine, everyone’s new once! Pick a quiet time of day when you don’t actually *need* to charge (ie you aren’t dependant on charging to get to your destination) and take all the time you need. Pretty much zero chance of damaging anything, so that’s one less thing to worry about!
Brilliant, that cleared up the difference between the AC/DC charge points for me. Thanks. Im in the process of getting a new company vehicle and it will have an onboard 11kw AC charger, so now I finally understand what the onboard charger does and I understand the difference in chargers and cables. Well done, very, very helpful.
I found this a really interesting and helpful video. I've been driving various EVs for almost two years and thanks to you now understand the difference between AC and DC charging (which has always puzzled me). Thanks!
I know I’m watching too much UA-cam on everything to do with electric cars, when I spot that this is the exact same charger at the wharf house @IanSampson used 3 years ago on one of his rural leaf blogs. Why my brain decided to file those cement blocks under “useful to remember” and not my shift time at work I’ll never know. Nice to see the unit works better 😃
With this hot weather my millage forecast on my screen is showing well over 220 miles range! I only drive around town and village and hardly drive over the speed of 40/50 mph. Again many thanks for the information you show us! Yeah I have got my MG now, have had her since November last year and I love it!
Thanks - I've had my Polestar 2 for a few weeks and thought I had my head round it but this was extremely informative and has probably saved me some head scratching and 6 hour services stops. Thanks!
I have had an ev for over 3 years and I charge at home 99% of the time and have always used a CCS when at public chargers and did not know that the type 2 even though it might state 22kwh will only charge at 7kwh as cars that except DC charge will be limited to 7kwh AC. Very helpful 🎉
Thank you. Just started the EV route. My first charge away from home failed as the charger took payment but would not charge. It was more experiment than necessity as there was plenty for the return but there is still a lot of issues to solve as more EVs are on the road.
I’ve been driving EV’s for more that 6 years and as you noted, I didn’t learn anything- but I still delightedly watched until the end just for the satisfaction that someone has finally done this much needed video-well done sir! I would be really interested to see you do a multi-day vlog of your real world usage as a realistic counter to the endless journalists doing ‘we drove them til they died” videos and/or sitting in a car obsessing about charge speed and charging to 100%.
Good idea - I’ll see what I can come up with. I suspect a return to the office is on the cards fairly shortly so I might be faced with having to make lengthy journeys fairly often 🤔.
First time I had a loan car which was a eNiro back in 2019, I looked on line found a charger in IKEA plugged it, Took me quite a few attempts because it was in the basement and couldn’t get a mobile signal to activate charger, eventually got it charging for quite awhile.. didn’t realise it was a very slow charger (£1.82) at that time I was completely clueless, and just learning, but that night I plugged it into the three pin socket all night and drove 300 mile round trip to London and back, only stopping once for a 45 minute rapid charge( £5.84). It said I had 70 miles left on battery when I was back in Bristol. I’m still trying to save up for my first EV. I only need a short range one because I don’t do very many long trips, so a leaf or Zoe would will do.
I'm getting my first EV in the summer and found your video very helpful so thanks for posting it. I hadn't realised the important difference in charging speed between the 43kW Type 2 AC and the 50kW DC CCS Type so this will be very helpful for when I take my first long journey and need to use a public charging point.
I think you got this from the good and important explanation in the video but just to be really clear - I don’t think there are any cars out there which will take both 43kW AC and CCS. So if anyone with a CCS or chademo car does accidentally plug into AC on one of those rapids they’ll actually only get 7 or at best 11kW or in very rare cases (like Teslas) 22kW if they can take 3phase. This seems to be a popular mistake by car journos who know a bit of faux charger confusion will get the clicks.
@@choddo Thanks for the clarification and I think this point was actually made in the video. I'm looking at a new EV but not a Nissan Leaf or Renault Zoe, so pretty sure that CCS will be on the car and this is the option I'll be choosing when using public chargers. I'm going to have a 7kW home charger installed at my house for the majority of times I'll need to charge.
This is what I like about the Renault Megane. You can charge AC at 22kwh and if you're visiting a spot not to long, it will charge your car pretty fast and cheap on a 22 charger.
Like Avid Viewers comment this was a BRILLIANT video and so informative. I have had HORRID days and now know so much more than I did before viewing this. Thank you, thank you, thank you :)
I guess this is the video that keeps on giving! Reallly appreciate the explanation, thank you. I should recive my brand new MG4 SE Long Range next week, I'm so exited as it's my first EV.
great video well done. i do have to explain to quite a few people about 43kW Type 2 only charging as much as your car can take. Ive seen instavolt get some stick for not including this but this is where we headed, you should do a video about the max charge your car can take too, pointless looking for a 150 or even 350 charger and sometimes paying a higher price to use the faster one if your car can only charge at 50.
Very good point. I suppose, though, you’re more likely to just charge wherever is available / convenient / working than worry too much about it being 150kW or higher in a 50kW car.
@@ModernHeroes agree when the only ones around you are electric highway ones your just amazed they work and think to yourself should put the lotto on tonight :)
Thank you, not looking at cars but I went and test rode of a Zero motorbike today which comes with a type 2... Its only a smaller battery (as a bike) but if type 2 is legacy this is certainly a consideration.
It’s not that it’s legacy, just that you need to look in different places to charge it. The Zero has max 6kW charging I believe - there’s plenty of 7kW charging points around but they’re in different (arguably better!) locations to motorway services etc.
@@ModernHeroes the 6Kw is an optional extra... But tbh I'd want to charge slower as not to exceed the battery of my home solar set up.... Its just for that wanting to stop for a coffee and add a bit more juice... A 3Kw charger would be a comical amount of coffee if out and about.
That 43kw is like you said. Limited by the car. And if you want 22kw needed it at option upgrade when you brought the car. Most cars allow 11kw but all Zoe can take advantage of 22 and 43
Excellent video. Had my Corsa E for a few weeks now & although have a home charger needed to go to a funeral 200 miles away after owning it for a few days. Steep learning curve & took a lot of planning ! I thing that you have cleared up that puzzled me. Couldn't understand what use a type 2 charger was at motorway service stations but now I know. Another thing I am not sure about is that my car can take a charge of 100kW & whether using anything faster would cause damage or if would just charge at maximum my car can take.
It’ll just charge at the maximum your car will take - there’s negotiation between the car and charger. Can use 350kW chargers no problem (but you might find you’ll be paying a premium for no benefit)
Still way to expensive to charge your car outside of your home at the moment , cost me £64 at grid serve to fully charge and I get 240 miles. It costs my wife £60 in Diesel to do nearly 600 miles . However charging at home cost me £15
If I am getting a car with a CCS port and a maximum charge rate of 100kWh when rapid charging, am I able to use 150kWh rapid chargers at petrol stations? I was assuming that it would work and just accept the maximum 100kWh instead of the 150 but I'm not sure if I'm correct...
This is a minefield of a subject 😄 but I’m going to try and summarise it in a future instalment. Might take more than one video 😂 By far the easiest thing to do in the first instance is to look for networks that use contactless payment - Instavolt and Osprey have it on 100% of their chargers. It’s largely going to depend on what you end up needing to use though. No simple answer!
get a newmotion or plugsurfing card they will work on multiple networks across Europe but it's easier to just use chargers that take contactless. Instavolt is far and away the best network for non-tesla cars in the UK.
Genuinely useful for a newcomer to EV, thanks for the clarity in the 43kw type 2
True, a few years ago I was preparing my electric home installation for 50 KW in order to charge my future EV, and It can actually only draw 11 kw, which is still fine as some EV's can't even do that.
Like most I’m due to get my first all electric car soon and starting from scratch regarding learning the connector types is just what I needed, thanks
So my friend, I owe you a beer or two. I tried to use a BP Pulse charger the other day that bombed out and left my MG ZS EV not able to start. I'd seen a previous video of yours where this happened to you and you had a spanner to disconnect and reconnect the battery and I had bought one as a result of that. This saved the day for me, so a big thank you. If you are ever around Crawley let me know and I'll buy you that beer!
A good explanation. I have come across many new EV owners who pulled up at a rapid and removed the rubber cover to reveal the AC plug (just as they do at home) and arent aware there is the 2nd rubber cover just below covering the DC pins. As a result of the 3 connectors they can only physically connect and use the AC type 2 on the rapid!! A simple mistake that is easily made especially as the charge port on their car is black in colour and so are both rubber covers.
Scary shit that they don’t know this
Who are you classing as “they” ? This EV business is very new to most people so learning all of this is invaluable.
Really good video . On Zap-Map, 3 people in the last hour have made the AC 43kW blunder and reported a slow charge not realising the limitations of their EV. I’ve replied to them with a link to your video . I think it will help a lot of new EV owners.
Excellent stuff. I do see a *lot* of people make this mistake. The things they don’t tell you at the dealership, I suppose.
Good video. Very informative.
I have been researching charging whilst waiting for my first EV and wish I'd seen this sooner! I've been trying to charge my car for the first time today, out and about, and flunked. Thanks for sharing this. It's really helpful.
I flunked three times in three different places before I found the right connection at a charging station that actually worked. Definitely a learning curve.
Very useful video, new EV driver here and it's nice to have someone go through it as you do.
I am getting an EV and didn't realise this about Type 2, explains why i got really slow charging the other day when i had one for the weekend!
That was a really clear explanation. I was confused about the fast AC option and you explained it really well
Just taken delivery of my first EV - many thanks for this vid, its superbly useful.
After getting my first ev this video has given me some great insight, thanks for sharing
Great video for the newbie EV drivers well done
Brilliant video. I'm waiting for my EV and no-one explains this to you, thank you
Excellent explanation of the plug types and limitations. Thank you.
Great, thanks for this. Looking to buy an EV for the first time and this is really useful
A first rate explanation. Thank you for taking the time to produce this video.
Thank you. I'm picking my first electric car up next week and I am slightly nervous about charging at public stations in case I get it wrong and either do damage or make a fool of myself. This is very helpful.
You’ll be absolutely fine, everyone’s new once! Pick a quiet time of day when you don’t actually *need* to charge (ie you aren’t dependant on charging to get to your destination) and take all the time you need. Pretty much zero chance of damaging anything, so that’s one less thing to worry about!
@@ModernHeroes that's very reassuring. Thank you 🙂
Planning my first long-range trip in my Taycan ... a little nervous, but this helps. Thanks.
Brilliant, that cleared up the difference between the AC/DC charge points for me. Thanks. Im in the process of getting a new company vehicle and it will have an onboard 11kw AC charger, so now I finally understand what the onboard charger does and I understand the difference in chargers and cables. Well done, very, very helpful.
I found this a really interesting and helpful video. I've been driving various EVs for almost two years and thanks to you now understand the difference between AC and DC charging (which has always puzzled me). Thanks!
Think of it as petrol and diesel...
You can turn diesel into petrol (on board converter)
Diesel being ac
I know I’m watching too much UA-cam on everything to do with electric cars, when I spot that this is the exact same charger at the wharf house @IanSampson used 3 years ago on one of his rural leaf blogs. Why my brain decided to file those cement blocks under “useful to remember” and not my shift time at work I’ll never know. Nice to see the unit works better 😃
With this hot weather my millage forecast on my screen is showing well over 220 miles range! I only drive around town and village and hardly drive over the speed of 40/50 mph.
Again many thanks for the information you show us! Yeah I have got my MG now, have had her since November last year and I love it!
Thanks - I've had my Polestar 2 for a few weeks and thought I had my head round it but this was extremely informative and has probably saved me some head scratching and 6 hour services stops. Thanks!
I have had an ev for over 3 years and I charge at home 99% of the time and have always used a CCS when at public chargers and did not know that the type 2 even though it might state 22kwh will only charge at 7kwh as cars that except DC charge will be limited to 7kwh AC. Very helpful 🎉
Very interesting Video
Many thanks
I am learning a lot from your blogs which will help me when I receive my car in thee weeks time! Many thanks for your time in posting important info
Thank you. Just started the EV route. My first charge away from home failed as the charger took payment but would not charge. It was more experiment than necessity as there was plenty for the return but there is still a lot of issues to solve as more EVs are on the road.
Thanks for a great video.
New to all this, about to get new EV in the family.
Now i know whats what.
Cheers😊
That's been more than helpful, my first long journey will be a week after I get the car, glad I found this now.
I’ve been driving EV’s for more that 6 years and as you noted, I didn’t learn anything- but I still delightedly watched until the end just for the satisfaction that someone has finally done this much needed video-well done sir!
I would be really interested to see you do a multi-day vlog of your real world usage as a realistic counter to the endless journalists doing ‘we drove them til they died” videos and/or sitting in a car obsessing about charge speed and charging to 100%.
Good idea - I’ll see what I can come up with. I suspect a return to the office is on the cards fairly shortly so I might be faced with having to make lengthy journeys fairly often 🤔.
@@ModernHeroes great stuff - I’ll look out for it!
First time I had a loan car which was a eNiro back in 2019, I looked on line found a charger in IKEA plugged it, Took me quite a few attempts because it was in the basement and couldn’t get a mobile signal to activate charger, eventually got it charging for quite awhile.. didn’t realise it was a very slow charger (£1.82) at that time I was completely clueless, and just learning, but that night I plugged it into the three pin socket all night and drove 300 mile round trip to London and back, only stopping once for a 45 minute rapid charge( £5.84). It said I had 70 miles left on battery when I was back in Bristol. I’m still trying to save up for my first EV. I only need a short range one because I don’t do very many long trips, so a leaf or Zoe would will do.
I will be an owner of an EV MG5 - this has been so useful! Thank you!
I am getting my first EV and this video has been a fantastic help. Thank you 🙏
Brilliant explanation, we did wonder what they all meant!
I'm getting my first EV in the summer and found your video very helpful so thanks for posting it. I hadn't realised the important difference in charging speed between the 43kW Type 2 AC and the 50kW DC CCS Type so this will be very helpful for when I take my first long journey and need to use a public charging point.
I think you got this from the good and important explanation in the video but just to be really clear - I don’t think there are any cars out there which will take both 43kW AC and CCS. So if anyone with a CCS or chademo car does accidentally plug into AC on one of those rapids they’ll actually only get 7 or at best 11kW or in very rare cases (like Teslas) 22kW if they can take 3phase. This seems to be a popular mistake by car journos who know a bit of faux charger confusion will get the clicks.
@@choddo Thanks for the clarification and I think this point was actually made in the video. I'm looking at a new EV but not a Nissan Leaf or Renault Zoe, so pretty sure that CCS will be on the car and this is the option I'll be choosing when using public chargers. I'm going to have a 7kW home charger installed at my house for the majority of times I'll need to charge.
@@dalroth10 yes it absolutely was. I was just being belt & braces :) Good luck with the new car. Great to see so many people getting on board.
Maybe it was the scottish accent but you have just educated me a new owner of a EV cheers mate
The thing about AC was spot on. I was indeed that confused person who didn't know that 43/22 kW is NOT what you get from a charger
Very useful video, thanks. Now gonna have a look at the rest of your videos 👍🏻😀
very helpful. thanks
This is what I like about the Renault Megane. You can charge AC at 22kwh and if you're visiting a spot not to long, it will charge your car pretty fast and cheap on a 22 charger.
so your saying i shouldnt have stormed away from the charging point like a giant kid, i just had the wrong cable! Thank you!!
That’s really good. I didn’t know that about the type 2 43 kW chargers needing to use the on-board AC/DC conversion.
I got a Renault Twizy which uses a three pin connector, so I'm totally screwed :D
Twizy is awesome though 🥰. You can buy a 3 pin to type 2 adaptor for untethered charge points 👀
Invaluabe advice, thank-you from a new EV owener
Thanks for doing this - I found it helpful. Much appreciated!
Like Avid Viewers comment this was a BRILLIANT video and so informative. I have had HORRID days and now know so much more than I did before viewing this. Thank you, thank you, thank you :)
Thank you so much! Feedback like this makes it all worthwhile.
Great information for someone like myself new to EVs. Thanks
I guess this is the video that keeps on giving! Reallly appreciate the explanation, thank you. I should recive my brand new MG4 SE Long Range next week, I'm so exited as it's my first EV.
Thank you so much! My mother has just got her first electric car and it has been a learning curve. This is so helpful ❤
Thank you for sharing the video.
That was really useful. Answered a question I had for a long time.
great video well done. i do have to explain to quite a few people about 43kW Type 2 only charging as much as your car can take. Ive seen instavolt get some stick for not including this but this is where we headed, you should do a video about the max charge your car can take too, pointless looking for a 150 or even 350 charger and sometimes paying a higher price to use the faster one if your car can only charge at 50.
Very good point. I suppose, though, you’re more likely to just charge wherever is available / convenient / working than worry too much about it being 150kW or higher in a 50kW car.
@@ModernHeroes agree when the only ones around you are electric highway ones your just amazed they work and think to yourself should put the lotto on tonight :)
Really likes this video, thanks a lot!
Thanks for the explanation. I’m just jumping on the EV bandwagon so this was very useful.
Wonderful information, thank you for this video
Very helpful, thanks for uploading.
Thank you. I live in Canada but i love the way you explained the choices.
Thanks for that, one mistake avoided at least!
Another great video, thanks very much 👍
In the USA we use plugshare to find all chargers.the UK uses zapmap.
Useful video many thanks
Great advice, love the video's.
So now I know, and I was confused before, thank you.
Great video, really useful.
Great video, very well explained
Thank you, not looking at cars but I went and test rode of a Zero motorbike today which comes with a type 2... Its only a smaller battery (as a bike) but if type 2 is legacy this is certainly a consideration.
It’s not that it’s legacy, just that you need to look in different places to charge it. The Zero has max 6kW charging I believe - there’s plenty of 7kW charging points around but they’re in different (arguably better!) locations to motorway services etc.
@@ModernHeroes the 6Kw is an optional extra... But tbh I'd want to charge slower as not to exceed the battery of my home solar set up.... Its just for that wanting to stop for a coffee and add a bit more juice... A 3Kw charger would be a comical amount of coffee if out and about.
That 43kw is like you said. Limited by the car. And if you want 22kw needed it at option upgrade when you brought the car. Most cars allow 11kw but all Zoe can take advantage of 22 and 43
Excellent video. Had my Corsa E for a few weeks now & although have a home charger needed to go to a funeral 200 miles away after owning it for a few days. Steep learning curve & took a lot of planning ! I thing that you have cleared up that puzzled me. Couldn't understand what use a type 2 charger was at motorway service stations but now I know. Another thing I am not sure about is that my car can take a charge of 100kW & whether using anything faster would cause damage or if would just charge at maximum my car can take.
It’ll just charge at the maximum your car will take - there’s negotiation between the car and charger. Can use 350kW chargers no problem (but you might find you’ll be paying a premium for no benefit)
Nice one mate, thanks
This was a great video. You explained the difference nice and clearly. Just subscribed.
Thanks for the information :)
Very Interesting, Keep up the good work.
Well explained thank you.
i r disapoint no scary jumper :) - interesting about the ac - knew it wasnt as quick didnt know it wasnt THAT quick
There are a handful of cars that’ll charge at 11kW or 22kW on AC. Only one I know of that does 43 is Zoe and even then, only certain models!
Thanks for an informative video 👍
You are good at this. Thank you very much. 👍
Very well explained.
Good information!
The Universities are missing a trick here . . . . EV changing is so complicated they should be offering degree courses!
Thank you for the info. 👍
Thanks lad. That great info
I'm on my 5th BEV in 14 years & I use the Plug Share App to find chargers. I never use an app to charge I just let the car manage the process.
Very helpful thank you 👍
Very useful, thanks.
Still way to expensive to charge your car outside of your home at the moment , cost me £64 at grid serve to fully charge and I get 240 miles. It costs my wife £60 in Diesel to do nearly 600 miles . However charging at home cost me £15
Really useful video... thank you !
Thank you.
How do I take off that small piece under the ucc plug so I can fast charge
CCS*
What car do you have? It should just pull out or fold down.
Thanks. This is really helpful.
Great video to share with noobs 👍👌👌👏👏
Thanks 👍- I see a lot of people confused about 43kW Type 2 on forums, FB groups etc so hopefully this will help.
Thank you! Newby here.
Informative, thank you.
Many thanks - really helpful to a novice likee!
Really helpful..!! 👍🏻
If I am getting a car with a CCS port and a maximum charge rate of 100kWh when rapid charging, am I able to use 150kWh rapid chargers at petrol stations? I was assuming that it would work and just accept the maximum 100kWh instead of the 150 but I'm not sure if I'm correct...
Yes! The car draws the maximum it can by communicating with the charger. Can use any CCS charger, even the 350kW ones.
Awesome, thank you.
Getting megane etech 60kwh , is it generally mord exoensive to run via rapid chargers then simular size petrol cars per mile?
Thanks.
What about needing a different access card for all the different networks? Do I need to carry lots of cards or is there a standard one?
This is a minefield of a subject 😄 but I’m going to try and summarise it in a future instalment. Might take more than one video 😂
By far the easiest thing to do in the first instance is to look for networks that use contactless payment - Instavolt and Osprey have it on 100% of their chargers.
It’s largely going to depend on what you end up needing to use though. No simple answer!
get a newmotion or plugsurfing card they will work on multiple networks across Europe but it's easier to just use chargers that take contactless. Instavolt is far and away the best network for non-tesla cars in the UK.
@@davidholden2658 How much do the contactless machines charge you to fill up your car?
@@TheophilusPWildbeest it varies by network. Instavolt is 35p per kWh
@@davidholden2658 cheers.
My dad uses bp pulse and ubitricity and Source London