Rav4 PHEV fast charging?

[nlee]

That's interesting and I wasn't originally aware that it depended on the car being able to accept 3 phase charging. I just assumed the rated output was what you got but I suppose it's logical that if there is only one pin in the socket and one one wire in the cable to carry the single phase, that's the limitation. It seems very few Type 1 or Type 2 charging models can accept 3 phase. It therefore seems to make 11kw chargers (which I'd assume were all 3 phase in the UK) fairly limited use and you'd need to use a 3 phase 22kw charger to get 32amps on a single phase to fully utilise the 6.6kw onboard charger rate. 

[Roger_N]

13 minutes ago, nlee said:

That's interesting and I wasn't originally aware that it depended on the car being able to accept 3 phase charging. I just assumed the rated output was what you got but I suppose it's logical that if there is only one pin in the socket and one one wire in the cable to carry the single phase, that's the limitation. It seems very few Type 1 or Type 2 charging models can accept 3 phase. It therefore seems to make 11kw chargers (which I'd assume were all 3 phase in the UK) fairly limited use and you'd need to use a 3 phase 22kw charger to get 32amps on a single phase to fully utilise the 6.6kw onboard charger rate. 

32amps on a single phase is not a problem for most people, as an 8.5KW shower draws more amps than that.

[nlee]

9 minutes ago, Roger_N said:

32amps on a single phase is not a problem for most people, as an 8.5KW shower draws more amps than that.

Yes, understand that. I have a 7.4kw charger at 32 amps. I was just meaning if you only have one pin and cable and the supply is 16 amps per phase, that's all you can get.

[philip42h]

40 minutes ago, nlee said:

Yes, understand that. I have a 7.4kw charger at 32 amps. I was just meaning if you only have one pin and cable and the supply is 16 amps per phase, that's all you can get.

More importantly, perhaps, is that experience suggests that the onboard 6.6kW charger is a single phase device (capable of accepting up to 28A). That would seem to be a fact or life for the PHEV and hardly an "end of world" problem ...

... but it does make me wonder about the onboard charger in the bZ4X? Customers now have the choice between a 7kW charger and an 11kW charger. Hopefully both are capable of accepting 3 phase power? But if the 7kW charger is a single phase device accepting up to 32A and the 11kW charger is a 3 phase device capable of accepting up to 16A on each of three phases (so 48A in total) owners will be disappointed at the charge rate if they connect the 11kW charger to a single phase supply. Does anyone know the facts?

[Roger_N]

46 minutes ago, nlee said:

Yes, understand that. I have a 7.4kw charger at 32 amps. I was just meaning if you only have one pin and cable and the supply is 16 amps per phase, that's all you can get.

 

 

7 minutes ago, philip42h said:

More importantly, perhaps, is that experience suggests that the onboard 6.6kW charger is a single phase device (capable of accepting up to 28A). That would seem to be a fact or life for the PHEV and hardly an "end of world" problem ...

... but it does make me wonder about the onboard charger in the bZ4X? Customers now have the choice between a 7kW charger and an 11kW charger. Hopefully both are capable of accepting 3 phase power? But if the 7kW charger is a single phase device accepting up to 32A and the 11kW charger is a 3 phase device capable of accepting up to 16A on each of three phases (so 48A in total) owners will be disappointed at the charge rate if they connect the 11kW charger to a single phase supply. Does anyone know the facts?

Just about to reply with something similar, so are the plugs the same? (apart from the number of pins) on both 7kw and 11kw units and will the 11kw charger work if only 1 of the 3 phase connections are connected on the 3 phase unit?

For the extra charging you are going to get from the 11kw charger the cost of installing it to a home would probably be prohibitive, if you live in a very large house or have commercial premises you may well have it available.

[ernieb]

Still the same type 2 plug just more pins connected.

[nlee]

As Ernie says, a type 2 plug/socket can be capable of 3 phase charging, I suppose it's down to whether it's connected back to the charger and has the necessary pins present in the vehicle.

There are up to 7 pins in a Type 2 plug. Looking to the socket, the centre row of 3 pins are left pin = neutral and right pin = AC phase 1. The centre of the 3 is earth, the top 2 pins are communication and the bottom 2 are AC phase 2 and 3.

Looking at my set up, the plug from my 7.2kw charger has no connectors in the bottom 2 slots (not required as it's single phase) and the bottom 2 slots on the vehicle socket are blank, so as we've now established, even if the supply is 3 phase from the chargepoint and plug, it's not going to be utilised by the onboard charger. Hence it will have to be a 22kw 3-phase chargepoint to give the 32 amps required for the quickest possible charge. An 11kw 3-phase chargepoint will only supply 16 amps and will be the same as a 3.6kw single phase charge point.

As for the BZ4X, it's a different socket. It's CCS, which is similar to a type 2 with an additional module with 2 pins below. I don't know if the 2nd and 3rd phase pins are there on a BZ4X socket. Those extra 2 pins below on CCS are DC and bypass the onboard charger. The conversion from AC to DC and charge is controlled by the chargepoint. You can plug a Type 2 plug into a CCS socket but you can't plug a CCS plug into a Type 2 socket. I believe the maximum charge rate for the BZ4X is 150kw on DC from a CCS chargepoint, which is supposed to charge from 10% to 80% (c250 miles range) in 20-25 mins.