What are the methods for charging electric vehicles?
1 Answers
Electric vehicle charging devices can be classified in different ways. Generally, they can be divided into on-board charging devices and off-board charging devices. Based on the method of energy conversion when charging the electric vehicle battery, charging devices can also be categorized into conductive (contact-based) and inductive types. Electric vehicles can be charged using various methods, including slow charging, fast charging, battery swapping, wireless charging, and mobile charging. The details are as follows: 1. Slow charging: Also known as conventional charging or on-board charging, this method uses portable charging equipment provided with the vehicle, which can be connected to a household power source or a dedicated charging pile. This is the current method used for passenger vehicles: on-board chargers and home wall-mounted charging piles. The charging current is relatively small, typically around 16-32A, and can be either direct current (DC) or alternating current (AC), including both single-phase and three-phase AC. Depending on the battery capacity, charging time ranges from 5 to 8 hours. 2. Fast charging: As the name suggests, this method quickly charges the battery, also known as ground charging. It uses an off-board charger to directly charge the battery with high current, allowing the battery to reach around 80% charge in a short time, hence also called emergency charging. A representative of fast charging is the Tesla Supercharger. The current and voltage for fast charging typically range from 150–400A and 200–750V, with a charging power exceeding 50kW. This method mostly uses DC power supply, with ground chargers having high power and wide output current and voltage ranges.
