A Universal Electric Vehicle Outlet and Portable Cable for North America
Date
2024-08-06
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
World Electric Vehicle Journal
Abstract
For electric vehicle (EV) charging in North America, three AC connectors are standardized, resulting in a proliferation of charging stations which can only charge one of the three types of EV. We propose a “Universal EV Outlet” that works with an EV “carry along” charging cable—one end of the cable has a connector specific to that user’s EV, the other a plug for the Universal EV Outlet. This proposal does not interfere with, nor require change to, any existing charging stations. It does not require any new types of inlets on EVs. The components are already standardized. Eight use cases are examined to illustrate the advantages, and some limitations, of the Universal EV Outlet. The use cases illustrate how this solution: resolves the problem of multiple AC charging connectors, makes today’s “EV Ready” building codes more adaptable, lowers capital and maintenance costs, creates a solution to curbside and urban charging, increases energy efficiency, enables higher power three-phase AC charging for heavy vehicles, and facilitates use of EVs for building backup power and for vehicle-to-grid. Finally, we propose a standards-based active cable used with the Universal EV Outlet, which would allow fast and secure EV identification for curbside or other shared charging locations, usable today without modifications to current EVs.
Description
This article was originally published in World Electric Vehicle Journal. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.3390/wevj15080353. Copyright: © 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).
Keywords
electric vehicles, charging system, electrical standards, SAE J3068, SAE J3400, connectors, EV outlet, charging use cases, vehicle-to-grid
Citation
Kempton W, McGee RT, Ejzak GA. A Universal Electric Vehicle Outlet and Portable Cable for North America. World Electric Vehicle Journal. 2024; 15(8):353. https://doi.org/10.3390/wevj15080353