Report: Europeans split over EV plug standard
07 April 2011
Euractiv reports that French and Italian groups have misgivings over the German design of a plug for electric vehicles proposed as a common European standard. The tussle highlights “industrial jealousy”, the report says, as the EV sector attempts to go mainstream.
In 2009, Antonio Tajani, then commissioner for transport, asked the EU standardization bodies to provide the first common standards for charging electrical cars and for the smart grids by this summer.
The EU’s “focus group on electro-mobility” was set to adopt a standard type of plug for recharging European manufactured electric cars by 31 March, but an argument between rival designs scuppered agreement. Sources close to the group told EurActiv that the French and Italians had expressed misgivings over the German design of plug.
The German plug was expected to be adopted as standard, but the French and Italians blocked it because it lacked safety “shutters”, used in some countries to protect children from accidental shocks from domestic plugs. At stake for the winning design is not simply the manufacture of the plug itself, but also a perception that the winning jurisdiction will have home advantage with regard to standards for electric cars.
A commentator close to the focus group, who preferred not to be named, said: “It [the dispute] is very regrettable and it is clear that industrial interests are at stake.”
Even a German plug can be improved?
Posted by: HarveyD | 07 April 2011 at 12:31 PM
If your letting your child plug your car in you should be shot... actualy if your letting your child plug anything anywhere you should be shot.
Posted by: wintermane2000 | 07 April 2011 at 03:15 PM
Nothing has changed in Europe hence the same old jealousies.
Posted by: Mannstein | 07 April 2011 at 06:01 PM
There is a standard power plug that is built and used world wide. Children have played with it for thirty years and it is the one that was and is found on the back of desktop computers. Nothing different is needed, and adapters from all other national plugs have been built. They are available in, excuse the expression, male and female versions and sometimes both were on the back of the computer for monitor power as well. See a video of the Dunedin soccer match in New Zeeland if this issue confuses you. Ground fault interrupters were well developed in Europe long before there was a need to use transistors in them, and these can protect against much danger along with the earth ground conductor. All of the people who are arguing about this standard have used a cellphone in their hands whilst driving which kills a lot of people including children with and without cellphones, and they should stop this first.
The back of a car and the back of a computer now can have the same input. Switching converters are now universal for even cellphones and they can be for cars. AC propulsion even incorporates its motors into the switching converter and also can do vehicle to grid, V2G, in either direction.
..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | 07 April 2011 at 08:59 PM
During EV1 there was some standardization around the inductive paddle. You could plug it in while it was raining with safety, now they dither over egos.
Posted by: SJC | 09 April 2011 at 12:40 PM