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Home car chargers
Schrodinger - 31/7/21 at 09:04 AM

Any body with a home charger, have you seen this
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58011014

BenB - 31/7/21 at 10:42 AM

Thankfully my EV charger is a simple one without such bells and whistles.
I suspect, though, the risk of someone opening up a 22kw charger still attached to the mains to swap a raspberry pi compute module sd card is fairly low. It's a bit like my car, it's got a WiFi module that was found to be vulnerable to hacking so someone could unlock the car. Round here they just use a brick.

It's good to know about potential vulnerabilities but it would be rare that they get used.

Reckon someone is more likely to just cut the long heavy cable off for the copper!!

perksy - 31/7/21 at 01:22 PM

quote:
Originally posted by BenB

Reckon someone is more likely to just cut the long heavy cable off for the copper!!



This brings back memories of a callout I had once where someone had got up onto the roof of a building and started cutting through a HV cable with a hacksaw to nick the cable

I found the hacksaw melted and welded to the cable, but no sign of the person holding it

I bet it left a mark

nick205 - 31/7/21 at 02:38 PM

People will have a go at stealing most things. Usually with scant regard for their own health.

Mr Whippy - 31/7/21 at 03:05 PM

Mine is just charged from a 13amp plug in the garage as there really was no need for anything else. Unlike these chargers all the remote charging and heating is through the cars own connection back to Nissan so it should be quite secure, plus it locks the charge cable to the cars port.

Tbh it's kind of blown out of proportion, what someone is going to bother hacking your charger just to stop your car charging? Have they really not got anything better to do? And Omg their may park in your driveway and start stealing your electricity. Why? It costs a couple of pounds to charge a car. Big time crooks these.

Next they'll be saying people may steal our screenwash or the air out our tyres.

[Edited on 31/7/21 by Mr Whippy]

tegwin - 2/8/21 at 12:54 PM

I am a bit behind with electric car tech..

How intelligent are these chargers? Are we going to get to the point where you actually get taxed for EV charging via your home charge point?

Once everyone has an EV there has to be a way for the Gov to recoup the tax they won't be getting on road/fuel tax...




Also..

Be interested to hear the collective thoughts.

Do you think the cost of motoring overall will decrease or increase as electric/self driving cars come along?

Electricity should be cheaper than oil based fuel but the cars are more complex/will require more specialist/mandatory maintainence.

David Jenkins - 2/8/21 at 01:00 PM

I am absolutely certain that government will find a way to compensate for the loss of fuel duty. As they say, the only certainties are death and taxes.

As for home chargers - a problem that's now popping up is the theft of outside chargers, especially the more expensive ones like Zappi and Ohme. People on the Zappi forum are now recommending that they are fixed to the wall with security bolts or screws so that they can't be removed without special tools. They are worthless if they get wrecked when taking them off the wall.

Charlie_Zetec - 2/8/21 at 01:17 PM

quote:
Originally posted by nick205
People will have a go at stealing most things. Usually with scant regard for their own health.


Had a wannabe tea leaf come round and attempt to remove the *live* gas pipe running up the gable wall of my house (from the meter to the boiler in the loft) when we had out extension done. It was only for a neighbour popping out to see what was going on that he said he was inspecting the pipe for issues, and she suggested that she knew the builders and that he should probably disappear before I returned home and made my presence known.

Truly good neighbourly spirit; she didn't have to do anything, and it actually made me worry for her safety knowing what some people are like when confronted. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to be less diplomatic and don't suffer bullish*t excuses.

gremlin1234 - 2/8/21 at 02:54 PM

quote:
Originally posted by tegwin
How intelligent are these chargers?

they want to be able to regulate how much charge is taken at any time, - so the 'grid' can try to supply the same amount of electricity all the time.

going further they may actually 'reclaim' some charge stored in cars to feed the grid for 'spikes' things like kettles going on after the end of popular tv programs etc.

SJ - 3/8/21 at 02:31 PM

The 12 year old in me whats to sneak around at night unplugging them

gremlin1234 - 3/8/21 at 02:43 PM

quote:
Originally posted by SJ
The 12 year old in me whats to sneak around at night unplugging them
some of them lock the plugs in place while charging

nick205 - 4/8/21 at 07:44 AM

quote:
Originally posted by SJ
The 12 year old in me whats to sneak around at night unplugging them



I have that same 12 year old desire

craig1410 - 4/8/21 at 02:30 PM

quote:
Originally posted by gremlin1234
quote:
Originally posted by SJ
The 12 year old in me whats to sneak around at night unplugging them
some of them lock the plugs in place while charging


I would hope that all of them lock the plugs in place when charging because it would not be great to yank out a connector while 7.4kW (or even 22kW on 3 phase) of power is flowing. Our BMW i3 certainly locks the connector in place and you can't remove it until the charger has been told to stop charging and current is no longer flowing.

What I'm less clear about is whether the other end of the charger gets locked by the charger where a non-tethered cable is in use. Our charger (Wallbox Pulsar Plus) has a tethered cable so not an issue but we sometimes use charge points in car parks and on the street where we use our own charging cable. I've never tried yanking it out while charging but hopefully it locks at both ends for safety reasons.

I can only imagine the electrical arc that you might get from a 50kW CCS charge point if you were to yank out the cable mid-charge. Those also lock in place for that reason.

Note, I realise this was only mentioned as a mischievous idea...

David Jenkins - 4/8/21 at 03:52 PM

Both ends are locked, unless you tell the car to release the cable when finished (possible on mine, but I'd never use it as my cable is too valuable).

Sadly, petty vandalism is likely to be a problem in the future, especially for those using street chargers.

SJ - 4/8/21 at 03:55 PM

quote:
Originally posted by craig1410
quote:
Originally posted by gremlin1234
quote:
Originally posted by SJ
The 12 year old in me whats to sneak around at night unplugging them
some of them lock the plugs in place while charging


I would hope that all of them lock the plugs in place when charging because it would not be great to yank out a connector while 7.4kW (or even 22kW on 3 phase) of power is flowing. Our BMW i3 certainly locks the connector in place and you can't remove it until the charger has been told to stop charging and current is no longer flowing.

What I'm less clear about is whether the other end of the charger gets locked by the charger where a non-tethered cable is in use. Our charger (Wallbox Pulsar Plus) has a tethered cable so not an issue but we sometimes use charge points in car parks and on the street where we use our own charging cable. I've never tried yanking it out while charging but hopefully it locks at both ends for safety reasons.

I can only imagine the electrical arc that you might get from a 50kW CCS charge point if you were to yank out the cable mid-charge. Those also lock in place for that reason.

Note, I realise this was only mentioned as a mischievous idea...


Yes, I wasn't planning on trying unless reincarnation turns out to be true. Sounds like I should be safe if it is though

craig1410 - 4/8/21 at 04:05 PM

quote:
Originally posted by David Jenkins
Both ends are locked, unless you tell the car to release the cable when finished (possible on mine, but I'd never use it as my cable is too valuable).

Sadly, petty vandalism is likely to be a problem in the future, especially for those using street chargers.


I look forward to seeing some vandal on the evening news after cutting through a 3-phase charge cable with bolt cutters while it's still active!




[Edited on 4/8/2021 by craig1410]

Mr Whippy - 4/8/21 at 09:46 PM

And you know someone will actually try this, with a perfectly ordinary pair of bolt cutters.

David Jenkins - 5/8/21 at 07:10 AM

quote:
Originally posted by craig1410

I look forward to seeing some vandal on the evening news after cutting through a 3-phase charge cable with bolt cutters while it's still active!


Well, if people are stupid enough to try to cut through railway signalling cables... I remember a programme on TV where someone had tried this and ended up with melted bolt cutters - not sure what voltage those cables carry, but I believe it's higher than 240v and with a huge current carrying capacity. Some thieves have died...

BenB - 5/8/21 at 03:15 PM

I'm not so concerned about someone unplugging, more a situation in which the car stops charging for some reason or a dodgy connection between the plug and the car. I've now had two situations in which it was supposed to be charging but wasn't. I fitted a bluetooth OBD2 dongle thats active when the car is on or charging so I've written a little raspberry pi python script to monitor the bluetooth signal (if it goes off power is off and it alerts me). I'm beginning to dable with the OBD side of things to monitor the battery voltage and hoping to do a Alexa python skill I can get to inform me of the charge %age. Equally I might end up bricking my new car!!!