Electric cars

Might just about squeeze a Duracell or 2 in.:sunglasses:

Beware assuming that an EV can use a three phase charger. Not all can, my Nissan Leaf being one. It has the ability to slow charge from a standard single phase 16A socket, use a single phase 7,2kW Level 2 charger, or a 50kW DC Chademo rapid charger (which are often found at commercial public charging points).

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Thanks Jonathan,
I wondered with the various smart chargers if they were intelligent enough to modulate via the 3 phases to even out the charging? Then I heard 3 phase is measured differently to UK, the French charge customers on the exact amount used by each phase rather than the UK where they multiply the largest used phase to make up the bill, therefore in the UK we balance the phases this is not required in France?

I think you might be bit confused about three phase.
A three phase charger will draw evenly from each phase - it would have no reason to do otherwise.
French metering charges you for the total power drawn across all three phases & Iā€™m not aware of the UK being any different.
Phase balancing is a very necessary thing in grid terms but in France a domestic consumer needs to keep things even to avoid the need to oversubscribe just to avoid overload on any one phase tripping the entire supply.

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Hi Jonathan, no not really confused, more my description of the issue. I wondered if the intelligent smart chargers would as you say take a phase to charge for say 1/3 of the time, then select another phase for the second 1/3 and finally the remaining phase for the remaining third so a domestic situation with a 3 phase supply could utilise a sort of balance charging.

Regarding 3 phase in france, I was told there are 3 meter readings and as you say these are added and the total paid. Balancing as you say to prevent any one phase being over the abandoment and therefore a trip out.
AFAIK, in the UK is there is a need to balance the phases not only to even out the supply although a trip out is far less likely due to the higher delivery current available. The electricity bill is based on the highest used phase being multiplied by 3 rather than a total of the 3 as in France so you could get a very large electricity bill through not balancing the phases closely.

No, there are not. Thereā€™s just one total kWh reading even on a three phase meter (OK, two if you have a double tarif meter). A modern electronic meter does show the individual live & historic maximum load per phase, but this is not linked to billing.

Large installations (not domestic) do have metering/excessive billing issues if they create a bad power factor due to uncorrected inductive loads, but they still get billed for overall power use, not some guesswork based on what one phase may be doing.

Having seen actual bills for a care home, a multi occupancy residential development of 190 flats and a hotel, I can state that cannot be correct as all had phase balance issues, (could be a power factor issue, I will re visit and try to find out) but they had much larger bills than the total of all 3 phases.

Back on topic, There is now a shortage of batteries for electric cars so that is holding back sales and adoption of Electric.

That will be to do with the difference between real & apparent power; the difference between the two is due to the power factor/inductive load.

Would the same apply in france Jonathan?

Well thatā€™s one personā€™s opinion. Considering the resources going into ICE vehicle production it will be more a shift to different production than anything else and Tesla stayed last week they are reducing the colbalt to the minimum. New tech batteries will completely change the game.

Indeed yes, as the laws of physics donā€™t change at the border :grinning: The need to penalise bad power factor is a world wide thing for power producers.

Thanks Jonathan, that is totally logical and naturally against what I was told recently as disclosed in my first post :grinning::grinning::grinning:

Thank goodness i donā€™t have to watch formula E, failed F1 drivers and daft rules about using too much power :grin::grin: Itā€™s called racing :rofl::joy:

Not much to learn about electric motors unless someone has a break through moment, we wait for battery technology to improve and regenerative software may have some tweeks but not much else unless someone in the know posts otherwise? Still much more reliable cars than ICE Formula 1

I actually thought it might be of some interest. Iā€™m sorry that it was below you. Iā€™ve seen a couple of those drivers racing in the Race if Champions and if youā€™re better than them you must be pretty bloody good.

David donā€™t take it the wrong way, Yes they are good drivers, of course some tasted F1 but were not good enough to keep their drive or may have retired. Your point was about how the technology feeds back, lets stick to that.

A crackling good Porker?..

I bet you are only 6 numbers away from ordering one :smile::smile:
Porsche and the other hyper car manufacturers are talking about a rival fast charge network to take on Tesla, the ace in Teslaā€™s pack. Has to also be good for us lesser mortals with our little cars :wink::wink::wink:

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I had the chance to try a Tesla S thanks a belgian neighbour. And I have to confess, it is absolutely stunning to drive ! The most surprising is the torque. So much torque !! And it comes instantly, you donā€™t have that ā€œwaiting empty zoneā€ waiting for the engine to achieve 2500 rpm to find torque. You press the gas pedal and the torque comes right now. So to me thatā€™s the best of both world because, definitely, you donā€™t need a gearbox anymore. You are always on the good amount of torque.

Now the big downside is the weight. 2.2 tons thanks to batteries, wowā€¦ for a sedan thatā€™s nearly an american pick-up truck weight. But with new generation graphene batteries, I think in less than 4 years, EV will be able to drive 1000 kms with one full charge.