InsideEVs Calls EVSE a "Charger"

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Stoaty

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http://insideevs.com/two-federal-ev-incentives-end-tonight-chargers-and-motorcycles/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

When I put in a comment suggesting "charging station" or EVSE would be the correct term, several negative comments were posted in response (negative, but not accurate :eek: ). Is it too much to expect that a web site devoted to EVs would use the correct terminology?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charging_station" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
I've had the difference drummed into me on this forum for years. I've come to the opinion that asking the general public to understand the difference is too much and risks turning them off. I plug in to it to charge my car, so it's a charger. If an EV related web site wants to use an incorrect term to make the article more accessible to laypeople, I'm fine with it (although using charging station would also be fine and shouldn't be hard for them). Can't we please just give up the high-horse techno-babble debate and accept the term "charger"? We all know what they mean when they say it.
 
GeekEV said:
Can't we please just give up the high-horse techno-babble debate and accept the term "charger"?

No. It is simple grade school terminology. There is nothing about those terms that is "high-horse techno-babble" I refuse to take part in the dumbing down of this nation.
 
GeekEV said:
If an EV related web site wants to use an incorrect term to make the article more accessible to laypeople, I'm fine with it
Yes, but it would be just as easy to use the correct term, "charging station" which is an accurate description. That would be just as accessible to the lay person.
 
I think using the term "charger" is fine. To 99% of the people out there, they will not know what an EVSE is. Its the same with cell phones and laptops. People refer to the external box as a charger even though the actual charging circuitry is inside the phone/laptop.

It is especially confusing that it is considered correct to call something a "charging station" but not a charger.

And it gets even more confusing since a DC fast charger sits outside the car just like an L2 station but technically it IS a charger and is okay to call it that.

So to expect people to keep up with the exact terminology is ludicrous.
 
GIBBER said:
GeekEV said:
Can't we please just give up the high-horse techno-babble debate and accept the term "charger"?

No. It is simple grade school terminology. There is nothing about those terms that is "high-horse techno-babble" I refuse to take part in the dumbing down of this nation.

I plug my phone into a charger. I plug my laptop into a charger. I plug everything into a "charger", but I plug my car into an EVSE? How about we call the EVSE the "charger" and the "charger" in the car the rectifier? Then we can say, "I have a 6.6KW rectifier in my car so I can use all of my new 30-amp charger." Awesomeness all around and we don't have to subject everyone else to horrible words like "EVSE".
 
I call it a charger as will every other person as EVs get broader adoption.

My car is charged when I plug in that cable so I call it a charger. You keep calling it an EVSE or better yet, a "J1772 handle for an EVSE."

You remind me of that annoying person always correcting your grammar. Get over it.
 
reeler said:
You remind me of that annoying person always correcting your grammar. Get over it.

With statements like this, it's easy to tag who the most annoying is.

Call it whatever you'd like. I tell everyone it's a glorified extension cord and that the actual charger is in the car. If that's too much for some to handle, I don't rightly care. It's easy to understand and explain.

For the same reason, I don't tell folks who drive my car to "hit the gas pedal". I prefer to call a spade, a spade.

The times they are a changin'.
 
reeler said:
You remind me of that annoying person always correcting your grammar. Get over it.
No need to make personal attacks, you can certainly "get over" that. I will point out that a number of threads on this site include a correction of the use of "charger" by posters (other than me), and an explanation of the difference between a charging station and a charger, including the fact that a charging station sometimes includes the charger (QC) and sometimes the charger is in the car. Makes a significant difference if you have to pay to repair or replace an L2 charging station or the charger itself.
 
There's an ad in that article for an AV EVSE, and what does the ad call it? Yup. "Charger"

It's wrong, it's incorrect, but no matter what anyone says or does, that's the way it's going to go.

If it makes adoption easier . . . What the hell.
 
adric22 said:
Its the same with cell phones and laptops. People refer to the external box as a charger even though the actual charging circuitry is inside the phone/laptop.
<snip>
And it gets even more confusing since a DC fast charger sits outside the car just like an L2 station but technically it IS a charger and is okay to call it that.
Hang on there! Isn't the charging circuitry for a DC fast charge inside the car? It's the car that analyzes the battery state and decides what it needs. For my money, cell phones and laptops do have external chargers, because 120v AC goes into them, some DC voltage comes out of them, and a fair amount of energy is lost in the process (as you can tell, because they get hot). EVSEs or charging stations or whatever you want to call them don't get hot, and don't change AC electricity to DC, and don't change the voltage. They are just big fancy automatic safety switches.

adric22 said:
It is especially confusing that it is considered correct to call something a "charging station" but not a charger.
I wish we would have accepted and pushed a slightly different terminology was used a few years ago, but is rarely seen now: charging dock

A boat dock is not a boat. A laptop dock is not a laptop. And a charging dock is not a charger.

Ray
 
Stoaty said:
reeler said:
You remind me of that annoying person always correcting your grammar. Get over it.
No need to make personal attacks, you can certainly "get over" that. I will point out that a number of threads on this site include a correction of the use of "charger" by posters (other than me), and an explanation of the difference between a charging station and a charger, including the fact that a charging station sometimes includes the charger (QC) and sometimes the charger is in the car. Makes a significant difference if you have to pay to repair or replace an L2 charging station or the charger itself.
I'll raise my hand as one of those who corrects people.

As I posted at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=14728&p=332668#p332668" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;:
Perpetuating the wrong terminology can lead to confusion down the road, wasting money or buying the wrong vehicle, equipment or options/equipment level.

As much I don't like the proper terminology either, I too am not for dumbing this down. It can create too much confusion down the road and can mislead people who don't know any better until they found they've made mistakes.
 
DNAinaGoodWay said:
There's an ad in that article for an AV EVSE, and what does the ad call it? Yup. "Charger"
You know who else does it? CEO of ChargePoint. Annoying as hell. At least their website correctly calls them "stations".
 
planet4ever said:
Hang on there! Isn't the charging circuitry for a DC fast charge inside the car? It's the car that analyzes the battery state and decides what it needs. For my money, cell phones and laptops do have external chargers, because 120v AC goes into them, some DC voltage comes out of them, and a fair amount of energy is lost in the process (as you can tell, because they get hot). EVSEs or charging stations or whatever you want to call them don't get hot, and don't change AC electricity to DC, and don't change the voltage.
Actually, I'm pretty sure the DC fast charger sends power directly to the battery pack, completely bypassing any internal charging system in the car. I believe the only thing the car does is monitor the battery pack and every single cell for temperature and voltage.

As for laptops and cell phones. Sure, there may be a transformer that you plug into the wall, but it still does not directly charge the battery. The circuity that takes care of that is inside the device. It is responsible for providing the correct voltage to charge the cells, monitoring each cell's voltage to determine when it is full, and stopping the charge once that level is reached.
 
I'm ok with people calling them chargers. Using techy terms can turn people off. Everything else in the electronics world has the cord/brick/whatever called a charger. Expecting EV's to be any different is just asking for trouble for the Grandmas and simpletons of the world. :)

This may be part of the reason Nissan calls the on board charger in the 2013 the "Power Delivery Module" or PDM. I do like the idea of calling it a rectifier. Although it's done twice in our on board chargers (for isolation). ;)

Further I do not like the way SAE changed the Level designations with L2 AC and L2 DC and all that crud.
It should be:
L1 wall outlet
L2 240V station/plug
L3 quick charge
L4 battery swap.
 
During Quick-Charging an EV, the external charger does supply DC power
(through relays that can disconnect it) directly into the vehicle's battery pack.

However, the controller for the charging process is inside the car, and ten times
each second the LEAF tells the QC machine how much current to be forcing/sending
into the battery. The QC machine is supposed to behave, and follow the
car's instructions, and the car "closely" monitors the process. At any moment
the car can request zero current to end the charging session.

Yes, our mini-QC (about 30 amps DC into the battery) actually works,
and we are trying to create appropriate documentation for release.
 
BTW, if we wish to be pedantic, a couple of common capitalization issues here:

1. It's InsideEVs or "Inside EVs", not "Insideevs".
2. It's LEAF, not Leaf.
 
Doesn't France have a committee to manicure the language, LOL? I am glad I don't live in France. Language is in flux. ;)

I will call it a charger as my car charges when I plug it in.
 
reeler said:
Doesn't France have a committee to manicure the language, LOL? I am glad I don't live in France. Language is in flux. ;)
Yes, the French has a group discouraging the use of foreign words and even supposedly even fines the media for using them. Google for french language purity.
reeler said:
I will call it a charger as my car charges when I plug it in.
:roll:

Since I see you have a '11 Leaf w/3.3 kW on-board charger and 2 Rav4 EVs (!) w/10 kW on-board chargers, please study the diagram at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=262630#p262630" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; then the Miles Gained per hour at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=101293" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and http://www.myrav4ev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=67&sid=6f7a12c18e4e47da8200928452fc6c70" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. Tell me how you propose to explain the pieces of and bottlenecks related to max charge rates depending on the line voltage, max amperage of the EVSE, max draw and output of the on-board charger, etc.
 
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