EV Chargers/EVSE

Here is what you should know about Electric Vehicles and their Types of Chargers

Owning an electric vehicle is a different experience than owning a gas powered one. However, one similarity between the two is that they both need to be refueled. How they refuel though is one of the fundamental differences between the two types of mobility. While cars with internal combustion engines pull into gas stations and get gas into their tanks, an electric vehicle uses an EV charger to connect to the power grid and uses electrons to replenish the batteries. In this article, we will look at the different types of EV chargers and charging available. 

Electric vehicles are in two categories; battery electric vehicles (BEVs) that derive all the power used to move the vehicle from an embedded battery that stores energy, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) that get power from a combination of a battery and an ICE. BEVs use EV chargers to connect to a power source while PHEVs can charge their batteries either from a power source or from the ICE when the vehicle is in motion.

EV charging or chargers can be classified in different ways. They could be grouped by the type of current (AC or DC), the charging location or condition, and the ‘level’ or mode of charging (UK EV owners are used to charging ‘modes’ while across the pond, it is commonly referred to as ‘level’), and charging standards.

The categorizations above have overlapping areas, as we shall see.