Charger or charge point - correct terminology.

Kramer

All plug-in electric vehicles have their own onboard chargers. All home charging utilises a charge point/wallbox/charging station etc.
These are not chargers.

ECars 22kW SCPs are not chargers.
Destination charging, hotels, shopping centres, work car parks etc. - not chargers.

All AC charging uses the car's own onboard charger.

ECars fast/rapid DC chargers, Ionity DC charger locations near Cashel, Athlone etc., EasyGo 50kW DC chargers, CircleK/Applegreen 50kW DC chargers etc. -
these are all DC chargers & are the only actual chargers for electric vehicles.

All other charging utilises 3.3/6.6/7.2kW single phase or 11/22kW 3-phase on-board vehicle chargers.

Apart from load sensing/app access/wifi/fancy design & flashing lights, all home charge points are basically glorified 32a outdoor sockets.
Calling them chargers isn't correct & adds to manufacturers/electricians charging extortionate amounts to supply & fit them IMO. New EV owners assume they are something complex & expensive & require specialist knowledge to fit as they are chargers.

Would an electrician have the gall to charge €600 to fit an external socket, just one cavity wall & 4m from the consumer unit? I doubt it, yet once they hear "car charger" - the price rockets up. Yes they are aware of the grant but I hear regularly of labour costs of up to €600, after the grant!
For basic installs :eek:.

I'm surprised many regulars here who should know better just refer to everything as a charger.
Have we given up on correct nomenclature? Is the battle lost? Should I revert back to hoover & biro etc. too?
Why even bother differentiating between kW or kWh then if accuracy doesn't matter?

Am I nitpicking?
It doesn't even require an extra syllable - charger vs charge point.

Anyway............need more coffee............not recovered since the shock of Ionity's €0.79/kWh charge news...........election coming............my head is wrecked.........who to vote for............too much stress................:D.

Maewyn Succat

Kramer wrote: »

All plug-in electric vehicles have their own onboard chargers. All home charging utilises a charge point/wallbox/charging station etc.
These are not chargers.

ECars 22kW SCPs are not chargers.
Destination charging, hotels, shopping centres, work car parks etc. - not chargers.

All AC charging uses the car's own onboard charger.

ECars fast/rapid DC chargers, Ionity DC charger locations near Cashel, Athlone etc., EasyGo 50kW DC chargers, CircleK/Applegreen 50kW DC chargers etc. -
these are all DC chargers & are the only actual chargers for electric vehicles.

All other charging utilises 3.3/6.6/7.2kW single phase or 11/22kW 3-phase on-board vehicle chargers.

Apart from load sensing/app access/wifi/fancy design & flashing lights, all home charge points are basically glorified 32a outdoor sockets.
Calling them chargers isn't correct & adds to manufacturers/electricians charging extortionate amounts to supply & fit them IMO. New EV owners assume they are something complex & expensive & require specialist knowledge to fit as they are chargers.

Would an electrician have the gall to charge €600 to fit an external socket, just one cavity wall & 4m from the consumer unit? I doubt it, yet once they hear "car charger" - the price rockets up. Yes they are aware of the grant but I hear regularly of labour costs of up to €600, after the grant!
For basic installs :eek:.

I'm surprised many regulars here who should know better just refer to everything as a charger.
Have we given up on correct nomenclature? Is the battle lost? Should I revert back to hoover & biro etc. too?
Why even bother differentiating between kW or kWh then if accuracy doesn't matter?

Am I nitpicking?
It doesn't even require an extra syllable - charger vs charge point.

Anyway............need more coffee............not recovered since the shock of Ionity's €0.79/kWh charge news...........election coming............my head is wrecked.........who to vote for............too much stress................:D.

To be honest yes you are nitpicking. Any electrician knows what the customer is looking for when they are asked to install either a charger or a charge point same as they know what a customer wants when they are asked to install a plug when the customer obviously requires a socket on the wall.

I can't comment on the labour cost rocketing as I don't have any experience in dealing with that but I do know it would be a lot easier to install a regular socket than a charge point for a car as it would need it's own supply from the fuse board so each install will be different...some will be easy and some will be quite difficult and time consuming hence the extra charge.

AhHaor

Petrol stations dispense more than just petrol. not everything in life is accurate

Black_Knight

Discovered this a while back, but never knew what to call the "charge point" without calling it a charger. Cheers!

ethernet

Well EVSE just doesn't really roll off the tongue.

graememk

Been watching episode 2 of Maddie Goes Electric, on youtube, She calls them charging stations. I quite like that term.

Calahonda52

I agree with Kramer ( vs Kramer before his coffee ) on both counts.
.
Thank you for the technical clarity on the EVSE .

Any grant aided/regulated stuff in this country leads to gouging.
Example from y/day:
battery in alarm key pad needed replacing:.. had to pay for a " full "service, it's the law, we can't touch it without a full service" 136 lids for 20 minutes from the time he parked to drove off.
First time buyers grant and all that other FTB supports just benefit the developers
Reneable energy grants... same thing

Kramer

Well, it seems even ESB/ECars are 50/50 on this, flip flopping between charger & charge point, four times in their email :rolleyes:.



Which is it?

There is no such thing as an external AC charger - all EVs have their own, onboard, AC/DC converter/charger.
Home charging utilises a charge point, as well as all ECars SCPs etc.

If it's AC, it's not a charger. The charger is in your car!

80% of respondents here agreed the correct term is charge point, yet 90% of posts seem to call everything chargers :eek:.

Lumen

I can't see anywhere in this thread a proper definition of either "charge point" or "charger".

This renders the pedantry a bit amateurish, since pedantry is a disproportionate interest in the correct application of well-defined rules. So what are the rules?

The dictionary definitions I checked are irritatingly non-technical and tend to hinge upon the meaning of the verb to charge, which in turn is defined as e.g.

"to put electricity into a piece of electrical equipment such as a battery" (Macmillan)

What means "put electrticity into", and how does that definition include DC but exclude AC?

So come on, bring forth your definitions.

ELM327

Charger : in the car (ac) which converts supplied AC power to DC for the storage in the traction battery
Chargepoint: A place to plug in your car and utilize your onboard charger.

For DC the situation is a little different as the charger is offboard and usually located at or near the DC plugs.

Kramer

Lumen wrote: »

So come on, bring forth your definitions.

ELM327 has nailed it, once again :pac:.

Look at it like this. You have a mobile phone? Did it come with a charger? That little black (or white, sorry Apple people), wall adapter that charges your phone?

Well, calling ECars 22kW SCPs or 3.6kW to 7.4kW home charge points or any AC charge point, a charger, is like calling the socket you plug your phone charger into, a charger.
In other words, would you call the ubiquitous 3 pin mains sockets on your walls, chargers? Is your kettle plugged into, a charger?

Would you say "I must plug my phone's charger into that charger there on the wall"? In an airport, if you needed to charge your phone, would you ask staff if there's any charger you could plug your phone's charger into?

No, you'd ask for a socket, aka AC charge point in EV terms.

Words & accuracy matter. People are exercised about dealers conflating kW with kWh & that's only a small "h"! People lambaste Toyota for misrepresenting their cars as "self charging".

As early adopters, I think it's better to be accurate.
Only two syllables either way, no effort needed to use the correct term.

QED .

Lumen

ELM327 wrote: »

Charger : in the car (ac) which converts supplied AC power to DC for the storage in the traction battery

What you've described is a transformer.

Kramer

Lumen wrote: »

What you've described is a transformer.

No, this is a transformer:

liamog

If you call an electrician and ask for a home charger to be installed, and they respond with a pedantic 'well actually ...', just hang up and go for the next guy who knows what you mean.

Alun

Lumen wrote: »

What you've described is a transformer.

A transformer that converts AC to DC, eh? Interesting.

Lumen

Alun wrote: »

A transformer that converts AC to DC, eh? Interesting.

Ha of course, brain fart. So what's the correct term? Converter?

ELM327

Lumen wrote: »

Ha of course, brain fart. So what's the correct term? Converter?

Rectifier, I believe


But for EVs they are referred to as onboard chargers.

Lumen

Another question: what decides the DC voltage to apply? The BMS? Does it send a signal to the charger to say "my battery is at 320V so give me 340V please?.

ELM327

for DC charging the BMS tells the DC chargepoint BMS what voltage to supply on an ongoing basis.
For AC charging you'd generally be charging at below the voltage of the battery so I cant see there being a need for the same monitoring.

EG AC 7kW is 32a - 230V, 11kW is 16a - 230v - 3phn, 22kW is 32a - 230v - 3phn.