It’s more to do with having other loads & potentially multiple connections in general socket circuits, be they radial in France or ring mains in the UK. All connections present some kind of resistance, & bad (high resistance) connections will heat up under load & start to melt insulation & could lead to a fire.
However, the actual plug & socket combination should be fine for a continuous 10A load, which is what most granny chargers will be pulling.
Just to be pedantic (moi?) for a moment…
The in-line box of tricks on a granny lead & the specialised box that can be installed on your house wall are not actually chargers.
The task of inverting domestic mains voltage AC to DC that is required to charge an EV traction battery is all done by the charger built into the EV itself. The granny lead or wall mounted AC domestic ‘charger’ is just an interface (i.e. charge controller) that talks to the car system & delivers what it asks for but also will limit the power delivered if you tell it to. That is why a car that can draw 7kW AC to charge will only charge at 2,3kW on a granny lead as it is connected via a wiring system that cannot safely supply more & thus tells the EV to only draw that amount.
In another example my potentially 7kW Zappi ‘charger’ takes any surplus solar power above 1,4kW (the standard minimum EV charge rate) & sticks it in an EV if one is plugged in. The Zappi charge controller talks to the onboard charger to achieve that.
Apologies for the following question as it relates to EV charging in the UK but here goes.
We pick up our new EV next week and will be charging at home most of the time.
On the occasions when we need to charge away from home on a journey that exceeds the battey range there seems to be many apps available to advise where charging points are situated however these apps almost invariably ask for a subscription. Ae there free ones or which are the best ‘pay for’ options.
A Better Route Planner, there’s a subscription option but that’s only necessary if you want to use some of the extra features. I generally plan a route then export it to Google maps.
Of course, Google maps itself will tell you where chargers are and how many are free.
I find that I plan less and less, just plugging in when we stop for comfort and sustenance breaks, though it helps you have a navigator to check on nearby stopping points.
Chargemap is a common option. You buy the card for a few quid then have nothing else to pay. It comes with a very useful app with lots of filter options such as “all free chargers”, “nearest fast charger” etc.
If you are concidering a home “charger” option I suggest you try your dedicated external plug first then get a home installation if it proves insufficient.
I don’t have an EV/PHEV, but found this interesting.
Too long, didn’t watch summary:
In certain situations, your or your near neighbour’s (UK) solar panel installations that feed excess power into the grid can raise the local mains voltage to a level that some smart EV chargers are set to consider as an over-voltage condition and halt charging immediately.
This has been known about for years, but is an uncommon problem. Invertors monitor the grid voltage and are supposed to turn off if they detect an over or under volt. I expect some cheap invertors that aren’t properly certified are not doing this. It can be sorted out by the power company, but trying to get them to admit there is an issue can be difficult.
E Berlingo XTR. Nothing fancy but having driven my Kangoo in France since 2016 and then swapping for a UK aging Berlingo to put us on for a few months, managed to find this little gem with just 4k on the clock and 3 years old.
Not a massive range at circa 175 miles but rarely do trips that long now.
I bought a second hand LHD (diesel) Berlingo before moving to France. It gave 20 years of trouble free motoring and is is still being driven by a local chap who bought it. Extremely practical, bags of space and described by, Clarkson as “a brick on steroids”
