Don’t you have 240v mains power in the UK? Trying to charge a car off 120v only adds 3 miles of range per hour in the US so I had to have a dedicated circuit installed. It might be the same in the UK for amperage reasons. What’s a three pin plug?
Comment on Is charging electric car at holiday house "theft"?
nbafantest@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Speaking to the Mirror, Amanda said: “It’s not just the cost – it’s also about safety. Charging a battery using a three-pin plug can take around 30 hours.
“That’s a significant amount of power flowing through a standard household socket for an extended period of time.”
You have circuit breakers specifically if it’s using too much power.
Nach@midwest.social 1 year ago
PupBiru@kbin.social 1 year ago
AFAIK (and i could be totally wrong here; 3 phase is where my knowledge of electricity takes a sharp dip!) you can get up to 480V total on a 3 phase circuit in the US… 3 phase is what a lot of dedicated car charging circuits would run off
i had heard that US properties get 3 phase power by default and a lot of your circuits are split between the phases, where a lot of 230/240V countries get a single phase, and that you have certain 240V circuits for speciality things like clothes driers that operate somehow using multiple phases at once? or that could be total nonsense misremembering
… but also, houses in 240V countries (i’m in australia for example and we have 240) can also get 3 phase, and that’s often what’s added for electric vehicles
GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 1 year ago
You can get 3-phase in the UK, but it’s very much down to what’s available in the street.
And you’re definitely getting into commercial pricing for the install when you call the electric company.
Most of the time, home chargers are just up-rated cables from a standard single-phase supply (most houses are 100A or 60A, so 30A for a car isn’t insane, while giving 7.2KWh)
Borkingheck@lemmy.world 1 year ago
A three pin plug is just the UK standard plug, it has three pins on it, with the top pin being longer than the other two which engages firsts and prevents electrocution. They are also fused instead of the actual wall socket.
Schmeckinger@feddit.de 1 year ago
Yeah circuit breakers are there to protect the cables in the wall. Some of them don’t even protect you.
mackwinston@feddit.uk 1 year ago
While this is true, extended high current usage through a 3 pin plug isn’t ideal - especially if the house wiring is a bit old and imperfect. It’s generally not recommended to regularly charge cars off standard 3 pin plugs, although a one off usage will probably be just fine.