What are the types of chargers?
There are two common types of chargers in the market, one is DC charger and the other is AC charger.
DC charger: DC chargers are fixedly installed in some public places other than EVs, such as residential neighborhoods, neighborhood parking lots, commercial areas, service areas, outdoor parking lots, EV charging stations and other places. It is a charging device that provides DC power for non-vehicle-mounted electric vehicle batteries by connecting to the public power grid. As DC charging pile can directly charge electric vehicle batteries, it generally adopts three-phase four-wire or three-phase three-wire power supply, and the output voltage and current range is adjustable, so it can realize fast charging for electric vehicles, and DC charging pile is also known as fast charging. DC charging pile is also called fast charging. DC charging pile has different specifications such as 30kW, 60kW, 80kW, 120kW, 150kW, 180kW and so on due to different output power.
AC chargers: AC chargers are also devices that are fixedly installed in some public places outside the EV to provide controlled one-way AC power or three-phase AC power for the EV on-board charger. It should be noted that the AC charging post itself does not have charging function, it simply provides power output to charge the EV battery by connecting to the EV on-board charger. Since the power of EV chargers is generally small, AC chargers cannot realize fast charging, and AC chargers are also known as slow charging. The output power of AC charger is not very large, usually 3.5kW, 7kW, 15kW, etc.
Difference: There are two differences between DC chargers and AC chargers. First, when charging, DC charging pile can directly charge the battery of EV, so it doesn't need on-board charger; while AC charging pile can't directly charge the battery of EV, so it needs on-board charger. Second, the charging time is different, DC charger charging speed is faster, generally for electric car battery fully charged only need a few minutes to two or three hours, while AC charging pile for electric car battery fully charged time is much longer, generally need about eight hours.
