Californians first experimented with all-electric vehicles 10 years ago. As a young technology, the system was riddled with quirks. Among Richard Lowenthal's frustrations: He didn't know whether a charge station could connect to his Toyota Rav-4 EV until he looked at its cord. Imagine a gas-station pump suited for a Chevy but not a Honda. "There were four different [cord] standards," Lowenthal recalls. "It was a complete mess."
Toyota's first plug-in hybrid-electric Prius will be unveiled next month, and electric vehicles are poised to spread across the country. To avoid the mistakes of the past, the Society of Automotive Engineers will release standards for charger cords next year that should ensure all automakers and charge stations offer compatible devices. This will by no means be a simple extension cord. The plug is getting a fresh look.
Sleeker
The vehicle cord of the future, now being developed by Yazaki, is about one-fourth the size of previous models. About 45 millimeters in diameter, it will handle 80 amps of energy. Although earlier, direct-current (DC) models handled more than twice the energy—600 volts DC, 400 amps—the modern, alternating-current (AC) cords should still provide enough juice for even luxury electronic vehicles such as the Tesla Roadster.