It doesn't. They'd just wire it to a single phase like discussed here. See the second to last page of this presentation (then flip through the rest of it).
Thanks. The summary in the final page of that presentation says it all, almost: "As there will probably be a future need to use three phase power for public charging also in the US action should be taken now, to avoid stranded investments and costly retrofits". What it doesn't say is that car makers must not skip three phase support, as that will cut them off from the European market and very likely cause problems in the future. That shortsighted Yazaki plug is the best thing that could possibly have happened for the European car makers, I fear. They can't even be blamed for not speaking out.
I think some manufacturers think they will fit DC fast chargers everywhere. Then the local supply type becomes a moot point. However, these are typically expensive and bulky, so the number of sites that can be covered will be much less. Ultimately it's down to the trade off between putting the complexity in the EVSE or the car. When the number of cars outweighs the number of chargers, then it makes sense to put it in the EVSE I guess.
Yes, I agree, but three phase is just so very much more cost effective than single phase. Semiconductors, capacitors and wires are used more efficiently because of the constant power. Additionally, much of Europe already has a three phase infrastructure in place, and you can be certain that the European car makers will use it for what it's worth. The presentation that doug posted is very good, take a look at it. They compare a 7kW single phase charger with a 21kW three phase charger and get the following figures: The three phase version will deliver +200% power in +70% weight, +40% volume and +50% cost. An interesting aspect is that even though three phase is less widespread in the US than in Europe, the benefit of three phase power is even higher in the US because of the larger voltage difference (480/240V vs 400/230V). I truly hope that Tesla will not drop support for Nikola Tesla's primary achievement - three phase power distribution. That would be too ironic.
We had a pretty long winded discussion of merits/disadvantages of offboard chargers already: http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/4092-TEPCO-CHAdeMO-Level-III-quot-quick-quot-charging-station-connector/page4 Edit: double post
As for the J1772/Yazaki decision, probably a few factors: 1) single phase dominates in the North American/Japanese market 2) less pins/lower max power makes cables cheaper (3 phase support viewed as unnecessary expense) 3) CHAdeMO/TEPCO DC charging works for quick charging 4) Both Yazaki/TEPCO DC charging put to use much earlier in prototype vehicles and certainly will be for production vehicles Trying to verify #4 with some evidence below: CARB ZEV regulation draft on J1772 REV 2009 (moving from Avcon to Yazaki) shows Mennekes wasn't even a consideration yet in mid 2008: http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/hevtest/071608evchargingreq.pdf iMIEV with 2 socket design from late 2006: http://green.autoblog.com/2006/10/12/mitsubishi-motors-builds-new-research-ev-i-miev-for-joint-res/ Details of 5 pin 110V/220V socket + TEPCO DC quick charging socket from early 2008: http://green.autoblog.com/photos/mitsubishi-i-miev-press-kit/#713981 (better view of 5 pins, obviously not J1772 in its current iteration) http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/2012-mitsubishi-i-miev-plug.jpg First TEPCO quick charger deployed in late 2006: http://www.iea.org/work/2008/transport/TEPCO.pdf Edit: accidental double post
1) True. But three phase wiring is present pretty much everywhere there too, just not exposed to the same degree. It might be very expensive to get a three phase charging station in one particular spot, but if you don't care about the exact location, it would be much cheaper to have it installed at the closest place where three phase power is present. 2) Not by much, five vs. seven pins. Three heavy gauge wires vs. five. But for the same delivered power, the total wire cross-sectional area is smaller. 3) I think DC charging is planned for the European plugs too. See the picture in the bottom slide posted by TEG here. It seems the normal Mennekes plug supports DC charging up to 70kW, a larger variant of the plug is required for higher power. I haven't seen this mentioned elsewhere, so I don't know if this is correct. But these stations are going to be less widespread because of their higher cost. Particularly so in Europe, where you will be able to get 44kW without them. 4) Still not too late to turn around. I think Tesla can avoid the whole problem by simply letting the socket in the car be an adapter, plugged into another socket hidden just behind the charge port. Just swap out the outermost socket to switch plug types.
1) The main idea in this point is just that having only single phase support isn't an issue in North America/Japan, while only single phase support definitely doesn't cut it in Europe. 2) Even very small differences in price is going to matter to manufacturers esp if they see extra features as unnecessary (I think Doug's slides say a Mennekes cable will be 150% of the cost of a J1772 cable). 3) TEPCO is the only one demonstrated/tested extensively to be working. I don't think Mennekes DC charging even had a demonstration yet. I think if the manufacturers wanted to turn around they would have already. Now all charger/plug-in manufacturers have committed to J1772 for North America/Japanese production, so I don't think they will turn around; it'll already be too costly. And I have yet to see anyone heed the recommendations in the pdf Doug posted, even though they make sense if the goal is to maintain possible future compatibility with Mennekes. It may well be true that European manufacturers purposely didn't push the Mennekes plug as a standard in the US to keep the Euro market to themselves, but I think the main reason is they were too late to the BEV/plug-in game compared to the Japanese, which allowed Yazaki/TEPCO to become the standard. However in the end, I don't think either side will have a manufacturering advantage. Euro car makers will need a J1772 socket to sell a car in North America/Japan; while US/Japanese automakers will need a Mennekes socket to sell in Europe. The only hope for a true worldwide standard is if Europe/US/Japan agrees on a common level III charging socket. Then at least that will be common.
For the same power? I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Mennekes is not a standard, it's one of two competing designs for an IEC 62196 standard plug in Europe. They thought they had the only proposal 18 months ago, then a mainly Italian consortium came out of leftfield with another less capable proposal and the whole process got bogged down. This is holding back its adoption in Europe, despite Mennekes' best efforts to get as many European EV manufacturers to adopt it by default. I hope Mennekes gets adopted anyway (mainly due to its >32A capability) but we can't yet take that as a given.
Ok. If you think three phase is a waste of time and money in North America and Japan, I won't argue with that, I can see that the split-phase system together with DC chargers can cover most needs. Three phase charge points have an advantage compared to DC chargers, but only if connection to the three phase grid costs less than the extra cost of the DC charger. Exactly. Thank you! Many people don't seem to realize this, even engineers. Ok - but does it make sense if the cars must support three phase anyway? I think you're right. Exactly which plug is less important than compatibility with three phase power. It's not as simple as plug compatibility, US and Japanese car makers can't just install a Mennekes socket, they need to provide three phase support through it too. European car makers will provide both single and three phase support anyway, so the Europeans just have to switch the plug, while US and Japanese cars must support three phase through the plug in addition in order to be competitive in Europe. At least the Japanese car makers currently don't - I think. There is so much misinformation floating about that it's hard to get a clear picture, but as far as I can tell, neither the LEAF nor the i-MiEV support three phase charging. Nissan and Mitsubishi are trying to sell them by promising a future DC recharge network. If all cars support three phase and they make it possible to swap plug types instead of using a bulky adapter, then the Europeans will not have a competitive advantage. That's what I'm hoping for. AndrewBissell: Thanks, I missed that. That's reassuring - I hope they don't change their mind.
Definitely not the same power. Although this point is less of an issue, since looking more carefully, there will be single phase only cables of lower power available for Mennekes. I didn't realize that, I though Mennekes set as a standard given all the Germans seem to have settled on Mennekes (all the recent EVs from BMW, Daimler, VW have it). Given Mennekes is not a standard, it makes even more sense why the SAE went ahead with Yazaki.
It is no point in providing three-phase plugs on the Leaf as it only has a 3.3kW charger anyway (which is as big a limitation in NA/Japan as in Europe) and thus is served fine by 230V 16A single phase. The Roadster on the other hand has a much more powerful charger and would most definately benefit from three-phase.
But it supports DC charging, as does the i-MiEV. Yes, and the larger the battery, the more difficult it becomes to fill it back up. On further consideration, I agree that not all cars need fast charging. But the more capable the car is, the more capable the charger must be too. To fully replace the ICE, the EV must be able to travel around 500 km several days in a row. 10-12 kW is then sufficient for overnight charging. That's almost 50A at 230V single phase and unobtainable through 3x40A or even 3x63A main fuses, but with 400V three phase only 16A is required. The LEAF and the i-MiEV are among the first electric four seaters, so I think and hope that many will buy them despite their slow chargers, but the standards must support completely electric transportation in the future. Well, yes, but take a look at this article. Gery Kissel's statements make me wonder whether it has occurred at all to the SAE people that the European distribution grid is different.
If you have 63A main fuses, and want to pull 50A through one of them, then you have only 13A (3 kW) left for all the other stuff on that phase. The electrician would have to move everything on that phase to the other phases, and you would still have to be careful when using the stove (3~) while charging. The water heater might be three phase too. Also, two phases would take almost all the load whenever the car is not charging, so the system would always be very unbalanced. It's not impossible, but you still can't just go ahead and do it, and a 16A three phase circuit would be a much better solution. This is a nice-looking schematic that shows a domestic three phase installation. The main fuses have been left out, these would be placed in front of the busbars. Note how all heavy loads are evenly spread out among the phases, failure to do this is considered poor workmanship.
http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/pub/SmartGrid/CSCTGStandards/CSWG_Standards_SAE_1772-3_SAE_Electric_Vehicle_and_Plug_in_Hybrid_Electric_Vehicle_Conductive_Charge_Coupler_111210.pdf Other NIST fun: nist - Google Search