Type 2 plugs in France

[nunux59]

I am a happy French owner of a Brammo Empulse R for 10 days and I have questions regarding charging on public stations. My bike have been delivered with a Level 2 220V wall box and a J1772 to IEC 62196-2 (type 2) Cable.

Here is what the cable looks like :




It looks like most of European charging station do not provide the cable and this cable is useful for that kind of charging station. The probleme is that here in France the cable is attached to the charging station and look like this :


Regarding the images and specifications it matches. Type 2 male in type 2 female should be ok. But it does not !

If I try to plug my type 2 connector in the type 2 connector of the charge station it does not completely go in and stop before the connectors are in contact. If you look at the first picture here you will see that the contacts are far away in the plug but if you look at the charging station plug the contacts are really close to the edge. Obviously this prevent me from charging my Empulse.

An Renault Zoe owner arrived at the station when I was trying to plug myself and showed me the Type 2 connector on his car and it was something like this :


You can see that the contacts are close to the edge so my conclusion is that type 2 male EV connectors are different than type 2 male plugs.

After this long introduction I see 3 solutions :
1) The cheap solution :
Cut the excess of plastic on my cable connector. Would most probably work but I may not be able to use my cable anymore to charge somewhere else in Europe.

2) The wise solution :
Buy a type 2 male socket for EV, enclose it in a waterproof case and connect it to a new J1772 connector. This solution is more costly and more bulky (remember that we talk of motorcycle travels!)

3) The nice solution :
Replace the J1772 connector of the bike by a type 2 socket. J1772 is definitely not a standard in Europe but Type 2 is or will be. It would allow me to travel without any cable but would probably void the warranty of my bike that I can not tolerate. I will ask my dealer if the swap is an option.

I know that most of you are in north America and thus are not concern with this problem but what would you do in my position?

[Shinysideup]

Congratulations on the Empulse R and welcome to the forum. I'm sure you'll get the charging sorted out...

I'd talk to your dealer as soon as possible.
I'd message other owners on this forum who live in Europe.

I wouldn't cut anything.
I wouldn't plug anything into anything unless I was sure. (Frying electronics smell bad!)


Like computers, it seems, the nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.

[Chocula]

Yes, congratulations on your new Empluse R. 

Looking at plugshare.com, it looks like things are still evolving in France so I would not want to make many permanent modifications to the bike itself.

Initially, it is tempting to try to be able to charge at as many different places as possible.  After riding awhile, you learn a couple of places that are convenient for you and only carry what you need to use those spots when you will actually use them.

Assuming you are able to charge at home with what you have, I would not do anything for at least 3 months, then if needed, I would try to find or build the smallest adapter that I could.  With no need to go above 16 amps, the parts are a bit smaller, lighter and cheaper.  Assuming this would only be used occasionally, I might not spend a lot of effort making it waterproof and only use it during nice weather.

In summary, I would go with solution 2, but only after a few months of using what I have to see if I really need anything more.  If France establishes a national standard, I would make something to accommodate whatever that standard is.  Anything else, I would wait a few months to determine if I really needed it and it was worth the cost.  You might check some of the electric car forums to see what they have done as there are likely cars with J1772 sockets that have the same problem you do.

Chocula

[Athlon]

Charging station with attached Type2 cable are very uncommon , this type of charging station is for 43kw charging (63A 3 phase).
most of type 2 station are 22kw (32A 3phase) , 11kw (16A 3 phase) or 7,4 kw (32A signle phase).

The Empulse accept only single phase so for us any Type 2 charging station is the same as every station can provide the minimum requirement of 16A single phase.

the best solution is to use a website like goingelectric.de and find out type2 charging station in your area that are not 43kw ( you can use any type2 station 22kw , 11kw, 7,4kw , 3,7 kw for charging an Empulse everything is the same since the internal charger - Eltek Valere-  can only process 3kw ).

The signal protocol between the yazaky- J1772 plug  and the type2 are exacly the same so changing from one type to the other is very simple , on my bike I will soon switch from the original to the Type2 because I want to add more charger so I need the 3 phase ( yazaky- J1772 only carries one phase).

But if you are not used to build and resell electric vehicles the best solution is to leave the Empulse untouched and just go for the right gharging station since for you the 43kw charging station are useless and other vehicles can take much more advanteges of a rare 43kw Type 2 charging station

[nunux59]

Thank you for your answers

You are probably right with avoiding 43kw charging stations. All Ikea and Auchan (big mall chain in France) have this type of charging station but they are often near others station.

I will definitely wait a bit before investing but for sure the standard is going to be Type 2 in all Europe so I may invest in a Spark EVSE for its compactness and build an adapter to use it on Type 2 stations and maybe Type 3c if they do not disappear rapidly.

Again thanks for the answers