At present, the charging standard is roughly divided into three categories based on the interface in the world: one is the American standard, the other is the European standard, and the other is the national standard. According to the charging technology, it is nothing more than the direct current charging (DC) standard and the alternating current charging (AC) standard. The charging standards applied by different brands of models are also different. Let's take Tesla's charging interface as an example to discuss the standard of the charging gun.
From the interface, the so-called "American standard" refers to the SAE J1772 AC charging standard, while the "European standard" refers to the Mennekes Type 2 interface adopted by Tesla in Europe. The most obvious difference in shape between these two standards is the number of "jacks". The so-called "jack" is a "pole" of the charging interface, each "pole" undertakes a certain job, not all of them are used to transmit electric energy.


SAE J1772 is just a general term. It includes 4 subdivision standards and 3 different charging interface shapes. Among them, the AC charging standard and the DC charging standard are respectively divided into two specifications, Level 1 and Level 2, and these two specifications are mainly different in output power. Another "European standard" is called the Type 2 charging standard, which corresponds to the "American standard" Type 1. This is the standard adopted by Tesla's European-standard cars, and it is also divided into two types: AC and DC.


As for the "national standard" (GB/T), it is limited to use in China and has geographical limitations. From a technical point of view, the "national standard" is actually an agreement based on the improvement of the "European standard". The agreement issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is a "recommended" standard and does not have administrative coercion. This is also one of the reasons why charging standards in various regions of China cannot be unified.
The following focuses on the DC charging standard. The DC standard is divided into three categories, one is the Japanese CHAdeMO standard, the other is the national standard DC charging standard, and the third is the CCS standard. CCS means Combined Charging System. Strictly speaking, it is a charging technology, not a charging standard. The advantage of CCS is that it is compatible with DC and AC charging, which is currently used by BMW i3. One thing needs to be explained. The article mentions Type 1 and Type 2 specifications, which are a set of certification systems of the IEC (International Electrical Commission). For the same set of charging standards, both IEC and SAE have been certified, and they all have different names.


For charging cables of different standards, their designs have both similarities and differences. For example, the national standard AC charging gun has something in common with the European standard charging gun: the pins and jacks are the same, and the temperature sensor is on the head of the gun; the difference: the voltage is 250V, there are mechanical locks, micro switches, and the pins are installed on the head of the gun. . Through comparative analysis, the workload of the design of the national standard AC charging gun is slightly greater than that of the European standard AC charging gun. In terms of difficulty, the design of the European standard AC charging gun has not been reduced. The design difficulty lies in the connection structure between the plug and the main body, sealing and Easy to assemble, product structure design engineers should have a unique solution, the national standard AC charging gun design focuses on the main part, the two focus on different, the same goal, must meet the ultimate user experience.