4 types of electric cars and how to charge them

But the bottom line is that finding the chargers you need is not as difficult as it sounds.

4 different types of electric cars

Here we'll look at the different types of electric cars available and focus on how to charge and fuel them. Luckily, it won't take long!

1.) Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs)

These were the first wave of eco-friendly cars to really hit the market. They are also the closest to traditional internal combustion engines. However, they use a conventional internal combustion engine in addition to an electric motor with a built-in battery. The battery is charged by braking and driving. This means that a hybrid electric vehicle does not need to be plugged into an outlet to charge it. Therefore, there are no HEV owners among customers.

(2.) Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV).

Although this naming convention may cause confusion, plug-in hybrid cars are very different from conventional hybrid cars. They use an internal combustion engine and a battery-powered electric motor. Generally, they can operate in pure electric, pure gas, or hybrid mode, but have much less battery range than pure electric cars. However, on Level 1 and Level 2 alone, these chargers take up to one hour to charge the PHEV battery. Therefore, design your program accordingly.

(3.) Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs).

These are the current leaders in the electric vehicle market. They have no internal combustion engine and are powered solely by batteries and electric motors. The range of these batteries is rapidly increasing, and some reach up to 400 miles, putting them on par with gasoline-powered cars. Since the focus is on the battery and the electric motor, pure electric cars can usually use any level of charging, including "DC fast chargers"; the biggest advantage of DC fast chargers is that customers can plug in and unplug quickly. Make sure that issues related to demand charges are taken into consideration.

4.) Branded chargers

Unfortunately, not all electric vehicle industries follow the same standardization rules. Although the actual configuration of a vehicle may not change much, some manufacturers prefer to fix "back and forth" consumers. Make their vehicles compatible. Only special chargers. So consumers can only charge their vehicles with manufacturer-built chargers, unless they pay extra for an adapter. In this case, it is important to pay attention to whether there are many electric cars of a particular brand in your area. If so, you need to check to see if there is any proprietary equipment that should alert you.

So, what chargers should I get?

If you want to focus on your own car, choose from the ones listed above . Quite a different story if you own real estate. In this case, you need to find out what type of car your potential customers typically drive. If most use plug-in hybrids, it probably doesn't make sense to go to Level 3 (DC fast chargers), since ENERGY5 software integrates with a large number of charging stations via Open Standards Protocol (OCPP) and works with multiple charging station manufacturers. to ensure maximum uptime and reliability.

However, Level 2 chargers are fast and practical enough and compatible with most electric vehicles, so you can safely install them. Whatever you do, pay attention to customer trends and see if you can modify your equipment accordingly.