Think of electromobility and the first thing that comes to people’s minds is range anxiety.
I’m here to tell you not to worry because today REV is going to tell you how to charge
your EV absolutely anywhere.
Plus the plugs and cables that I use for a worry-free EV experience in Germany.
Let’s start with what you can do at home.
This is a standard home plug.
If like me, you’re at your brother’s place, and your car is empty, then you can charge
in a normal home socket.
While it varies in different parts of the world, in Germany a standard home socket usually
supports up to 3.7Kilowatts, 230 Volts, and 16 Amperes.
But, getting a full charge from a home socket requires some amount of patience.
So we are charging right now with 3KW, which means it takes 13 hours to charge from 60
to 100 percent.
And that of course is a long time.
And it’s not exactly worry-free.
So I put it in a 10 Ampere home socket, but as you can see it’s delivering 13 Ampere.
So that is actually dangerous because it could cause the line or wire to burn.
In some cars, you have the option to change the Amperes, which will help you to save your
wire.
So there are always two sides to the story.
If you’re not confident about the wiring, then of course just use it for emergencies.
Just charge as much as necessary to come to the next charger.
A wallbox is a charger that you install at home.
I personally don’t have a wallbox, which is why we’ve come to this Mercedes dealership
to show you what a wallbox is.
Wallboxes usually deliver power between 3.7 and 22Kilowatts.
And you need a certified electrician to install one, which is often quite expensive.
But it can potentially combine convenience with comparatively quicker charging.
Which is a big plus.
So this Mercedes wallbox here is charging my Tesla with 11KW.
Which means it’s going to take approximately 1 hour 25 minutes to go from 60 percent to
the 80 percent charging limit I’ve set.
Which isn’t too bad.
There are also remote charging options in industrial areas…
This is an industrial plug.
There are two types of these “red” CEE plugs across Europe - a 16 Ampere plug that
can deliver up to 11Kilowatts and a 32 Ampere plug that can deliver up to 22Kilowatts.
So this is what you need when you’re in a remote area and you have no other opportunity
to charge.
But what about when you’re really and truly in the middle of nowhere?
These are camping plugs.
Which as the name suggests are CEE plugs you’d use while you’re at campsites in Europe.
Here they’re usually a standardised blue colour.
There’s the smaller 16 Ampere Plug, and the bigger 32 Ampere plug.
The advantage of these plugs is that they deliver up to 3.7Kilowatts of energy very
consistently.
So this, I’ve tried on my own and it works.
So you can rely on the electricity pushed into your car.
This is a cable that you get from a manufacturer when you buy an EV.
This is actually the Type 2 cable.
In Germany Type 2 cables usually transfer at rates up to 43KW, but it depends on what
your specific EV can take and what the public charger that you’ve plugged it into can
deliver.
For example, charging my Tesla’s 77Kilowatt Hour battery from zero to 100 at an 11Kilowatt
charger takes 7 hours.
If you live in a city and don’t have your own charging set up at home, chances are this
is the cable that you’re likely to rely on the most.
So this is actually the whole setup I am traveling with to avoid range anxiety.
And just to calm you down - I have all of these cables because I’m constantly on the
go, driving all across Europe in an EV.
Chances are that if you just drive from home to work and back, you won’t need to rely
on anything other than public chargers, some of which have their own plugs and cables.
These are the ones I encounter in Germany.
This is an AC Type 2 cable at a public charger, which is a rare find.
But if you manage to lose your own Type 2 cable, you could just use this.
These supply power at rates of up to 43Kilowatts.
This is the CHAdeMO plug, which was developed in Japan back in 2010.
They aren’t very common in Europe but are still used to charge some EVs.
They support rapid DC charging, and in Germany, they typically go up to 150Kilowatts.
And this is the CCS or Combined Charging Plug, which has two DC contacts at the bottom, allowing
for fast charging.
It’s the most common rapid charging plug across Germany allowing charging speeds of
up to 350Kilowatts, although occasionally even higher.
Of course, since I drive a Tesla, I also have the advantage of Tesla’s supercharger network,
which also uses the CCS plug in Europe.
But did you know constantly fast charging your car isn’t good for the battery?
But more about that in our next video where I’ll tell you how to treat your EV battery
right.
What are the most common charging plugs in your part of the world, let us know in the
comments below.
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