EVs and the Future of Electricity

by James Heppell

In 2030 the sale of new petrol and diesel cars will be banned in the UK, and hybrids will follow soon after in 2035. The transport industry is one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, so this is a crucial step in slowing climate change. Soon there will be a lot more electric cars on the roads, but why are there so few at the moment?

The 3 main reasons EVs are still so rare are cost, range & charging. The first 2 of those, while still not as good as petrol/diesels, are quickly improving.

Batteries have historically been one of the most expensive components of electric vehicles - but over the past 10 years the average lithium-ion battery price has fallen nearly 90%. The best selling EV in 2020 by far was the Tesla Model 3. The standard Model 3 has a battery capacity of 50 kWh. In 2010 that would have cost $59550, 68% more than the entire car sells for! Now that same battery costs just $7k. As electric cars and other battery powered products (eg smartphones and laptops) become more and more mass produced battery prices are likely to fall even more. And that’s just lithium-ion batteries. Many new, more efficient battery technologies are on the verge of becoming consumer ready. From solid state batteries that promise 5x the capacity per size/weight to less revolutionary improvements like graphene enhanced lithium ion cells and better anode/cathode materials. Range coincides with battery improvements. The cheaper and more space/weight efficient batteries are the bigger batteries EVs can have. The base-model Model 3 I mentioned earlier has a 381 km range and the new longest-range Model S goes 837. Cost and range are quickly becoming non-issues with EVs, especially as the second hand market starts to take off.

So that leaves us with charging. Unfortunately charging can’t really be fixed by improving the car. Your car can charge as fast you like and be compatible with as many chargers as you like - but all that doesn’t matter if there aren’t any chargers! The saving grace of electric cars is that because they use electricity you can charge them at home. This can offset a lot of the charging problems - it can in fact make them easier to charge than fueling petrol/diesel cars. This is a bit of a double-edged sword though. If everyone chargers at home, there’s a lot less of an incentive for businesses to build out electric charging networks. And while there’s less charging stations, less people are inclined to buy EVs.

You may have noticed at the last paragraph I said “be compatible with as many chargers as you like”. Well, unbeknown to most of the public, electric vehicles are yet to agree on a common charging standard. Part of this is just physics. The first and still most electric cars can’t charge that quickly. Yet others promise to charge 80% in under half an hour. The problem is that the second of these can only be achieved through DC charging while the first is easier done with AC. Let me explain. Batteries simply cannot charge via AC (alternating) current. Yet that’s what powerlines and sockets send, as AC is more efficient than DC. So at some point before the electricity hits the battery the AC current needs to be converted to DC. That’s exactly what your phone’s power brick does. But your phone probably only charges at maybe 18 watts, perhaps 100 if it’s fancy. EVs can charge above 100 kilowatts. So they need a MUCH larger power brick. For slow AC charging - where the charger sends AC current into the car - the power brick can be located inside the car. All EVs have power bricks inside them else they wouldn’t be able to use AC chargers. But to achieve those super fast 100+ kWh speeds DC current needs to be fed directly into the car because an in-car power brick capable of those speeds would simply be too big and heavy.

So in the UK and the rest of Europe there is a standardised AC port and a standardised DC port.

The one above is Typo 2 - AC. The one below is CCS (combined charging standard) - DC. CCS ports are clever because they can be plugged into Type 2 sockets and do AC, or be plugged into CCS sockets and do DC. Cars with CCS ports don’t carry around a Type 2 socket as well. So, eventually Type 2 will be phased out in favour of CCS.

That’s the simple explanation. Unfortunately things are a lot messier than that. CCS is a quite recent invention. Prior to CCS there were, and still are, other DC standards. For example, Chademo. While incompatible with Type 2/CCS, it still charges quickly and there are about as many Chademo ports in the UK as CCS ones! Chademo was invented in Japan and is more often used by Asian car manufacturers. It’s likely, though not certain, that this standard will eventually be phased out in favour of CCS, like Type 2.

Then there’s Tesla. The biggest EV seller in the world. In Europe at least, all Teslas come with Type 2 sockets and until the Model 3 there had never been one with a CCS port. And there has never been one with a Chademo port. Yet Teslas are renowned for their fast charging speeds. So, how do they do it? Well, when Tesla first started releasing fast charging DC cars, there wasn’t really a DC standard. Other car manufacturers were a long way behind. So Tesla invented their own. In Europe they use modified Type 2 sockets, modified in that they can take AC or DC. It’s quite clever really, but unfortunately Tesla's cleverness has left them behind other EV companies. Tesla superchargers use these DC Type 2 sockets. But no other chargers do. So pre-Model 3 Tesla owners wanting to fast charge their car have to use Tesla superchargers or get a converter to CCS/Chademo.

In the US however, Tesla were a little less clever and invented the esla port.

From Tesla’s perspective it’s beneficial, as Teslas in the US can use any normal charger (with adapters) and Tesla chargers, while other cars can’t use Tesla's ones. But from the perspective of a country trying to build up a good charging network and EV industry it’s just unnecessary fracturing. Hopefully in future Tesla adopt the CCS port like they’re starting to do in Europe.

You can also get commando ports, which are like Type 2 but more weather resistant. They’re rare but you can get a converter to use them if need be. Commando ports are more often used by campervans actually.

As mentioned above, the US also use CCS for DC charging, and Chademo. Unfortunately they use a different CCS. The European CCS is based on the European AC port - Type 2. The US CCS port is based on the US AC port - Type 1. Type 1 was actually used in Europe a bit before it was phased out in favour of Type 2 - which is far superior. The US though never swapped to Type 2 and has been a bit left behind… a bit like how they’ve been left behind using a different measuring system to the rest of the world. Below: Type 1 socket.

So, that just about wraps it up for EV charging sockets. Except for China, which uses only their own AC and DC port, GB / T, which I’ve heard is Type 2 but with the wires reversed…

Hopefully one day everyone will be driving around with a Type 2 CCS port on their car, not worrying about whether a charger will fast charge their car - let alone be compatible with it! Until such a day though, all we can really do about chargers is wait for the network to be built up and ports to consolidate.

Moving the electric powered vehicles is all well and good - as I said at the start the transport industry is one of the biggest polluters. But it’s entirely pointless - if not detrimental - to switch to electric driving unless the electricity is coming from a low-carbon source.

Here in the UK we’re doing quite well on this front. Coal - one of the worst sources of electricity - has been almost entirely phased out. Gas is on the decline and the majority of our electricity comes from low carbon sources (nuclear & renewables). But it’s still going to be a while until our electricity generation completely abandons fossil fuels - and until then the benefit of switching any petrol/diesel/gas powered utility to electricity is limited.

The UK is fairly middle of the road for an EU country. Norway on the other hand is one of the world leaders. Around 99% of its electricity comes from renewable sources and on top of that over 12% of registered vehicles and 54% of sales are Battery EVs (compared to 0.5% and 7% in the UK).

Parking lot wireless chargers are cool - an improvement on current plug-in chargers. But they’re a stepping stone. Eventually I envision a future where electric cars and other devices are charged completely wirelessly and are always connected to the grid. A step along this path would be a whole road wireless charger - such as this test road my Renault (from 2012!)

Already it’s possible to wirelessly charge phones. And I don’t mean the pretty underwhelming wireless charging that while wireless still requires your phone to be touching the charger. I’m talking about actual across-the-room wireless charging.

Speaking of Norway - recently they’ve started rolling out wireless charging for their taxi service. Sounds futuristic, and it is. Circular induction pads are placed on taxi waiting bays which automatically charge the taxi (if it’s lined up) at a pretty fast 75 kWh.

Using light - infrared beams - is one way of achieving this. These beams are highly efficient (unlike normal wireless charging) and reach across a room, but currently don’t charge very fast. Still, I could see a future where they’re mainstream and as widespread as mobile data is now.

Videos/articles that inspired me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLcqJ2DclEg - The EV charging problem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVEuOtRLNzc - Norway’s wireless taxi chargers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CadhtAJtMoA - True wireless smartphone charging

https://www.evexpert.eu/tips-advices-manual-curiosities-information-electromobility-evexpert/basics-of-electromobility-basic-abc/connector-types-for-ev-charging-around-the-world - Charging socket types