Another item being discussed by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE, the SAE 2009 World Congress is this week in Detroit) is a standard plug for electric vehicles. GM put out a call last week for a standard to allow consumers to plug in anywhere – home, work, or while they’re shopping.
The standard will cover the size and shape of the plug, the number of conductors, as well as a voltage and current level the connector can provide. Just today, Europe approved their standard connector, a three contact connector that can carry up to 400V.
One of the other factors they might consider is a way for the charging station and the vehicle to talk to each other. The vehicle and the station could exchange billing information, information about how long the car will be connected and how much energy it needs so the charging station can talk to the grid using smart grid technologies to find out when the optimal charging time will be so energy suppliers can have an even power demand and consumers don’t see their energy prices spike.
It is only about 18 months until the Volt is due in showrooms around the country, with a possible fleet test of 1000 vehicles at the end of 2009. The sooner the standard can be finished, GM can incorporate it into the final design and vendors can start manufacturing charging stations for home and at shopping malls and business.
[from GM Fastlane]
Update April 21, 2009: AutoBlogGreen has more information – the plug will be standardized at 240V, 70A, which would result approximately 14.25kW of power at an 85% recharge efficiency. Data would travel over the conductors, similar in principle to broadband over powerlines or home networking technologies that use your in-home electrical system. At 14.25kW and a source that could provide it, a Volt would be able to recharge in under 40 minutes, and a 35kWh pack would recharge in under two and a half hours. It should be finalized this fall, with manufacturers like GM and even Tesla on board.
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