The running costs of electric cars 2022 guide
For decades, motorists have been filling cars and vans with petrol or diesel, but plugging them in is fairly new to most drivers. It can be confusing to people in the market for an electric car with the array of charging speeds and charging connection types that currently exist.
Switching from a petrol or diesel vehicle to an electric might seem daunting, but worry not, as great strides have been made in improving both technology and infrastructure to make the transition much more straightforward.
Ever-improving batteries and electric vehicle hardware are resulting in noteworthy increases in the real-world range of electric vehicles. The UK’s charging infrastructure is continuing to expand and become more easily accessed. This, in conjunction with quicker charging, often means there’s less justification for range anxiety.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak earmarked £500m for fast-charging networks for EVs in his 2020 budget. His party’s ambition on EV infrastructure is for no driver ever to be more than 30 miles away from a publicly accessible chargepoint.
The retail estate developer Brookhouse Group opened “rapid” charging points at seven of its busiest retail parks during 2020. In addition, the electric vehicle firm Engenie unveiled plans in 2019 to install more than 2000 rapid EV points at locations such as shopping centres, pubs, retail parks and leisure centres across the UK by 2024. Furthermore, BP bought Chargemaster and have taken over the UK’s largest public network of EV charging points.
The new company BP Chargemaster includes Chargemaster’s 6500 charging points and BP’s existing 1200 service stations. BP is rolling out 150kW rapid chargers that’ll deliver 100 miles of range in around 10 mins. The company is hoping to have 400 of its 150kW charging points by the end of 2021. VW and Tesco also teamed up to add 2400 new EV chargers popping up at 600 branches of the supermarket retailer.
However, if you’re able to charge your car at home overnight, you might rarely have to use a public charging station. Your employer might also have a charging point you can use during the working day.
Within this guide, Fleet UK will help explain everything you need to know about electric vehicle charging speeds and the charger types which deliver them.
Electric-vehicle batteries have to be charged with Direct Current (DC). If you’re using a three-pin plug, it’ll draw Alternating Current (AC), so electric vehicles and PHEVs have a built-in converter to turn AC to DC.
In simple terms, there are slow, fast and rapid chargers available, with different connectors and rates of charge. All three methods will top up your car with power, but the way they do so differs, as does the speed at which they recharge.
