Teething Issues

We’ve had our V2H charger a while now, but had a couple of teething problems around a software issue that have made it somewhat hard to figure out the best way to use it. We are one of the limited number of customers who have been given an export limit by the DNO (Distribution Network Operator) telling us how much electricity we are allowed to export to the grid at any time.

Today a nice engineer from ChargedEV called Steve fitted us a V2H charger. This is part of the world’s largest trial of Vehicle-to-Home bidirectional chargers being performed by Indra in the UK.

What’s a V2H Charger?

A conventional EV charger is one way - it takes the electrons from the grid and puts them into your car. A bidirectional charger on the other hand, not only lets you push electrons into your car, but also to pull them out again.

This is the final piece of my three-parter on the history of electric cars. Here, we move up to the present day and the exciting developments that have happened in the last few years, where EVs are close to becoming mainstream.

2003-04

G.M. and DaimlerChrysler sue the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to repeal the ZEV mandate passed in 1990. The Bush Administration joins the suit.

A continuation of my previous article on EVs during the 19th Century, I now cover some significant events in the 20th century around electric cars. Arguably, during this time period, EVs had two chances to become mainstream, but both were impacted by events in the energy industry.

1902

If there is one key event that killed the EV’s chances in the 20th Century - this is it. The hugely successful Model-T Ford began mass production. Through it was a hand crank car, gasoline was already readily available, and the efficient production line processes made it relatively cheap compared to previous cars.

This is the first part of a three-parter on the history of EVs across the last 200 years or so. It comes from a Lunch & Learn presentation I did at work recently. I wanted to make a bit more visually pleasing, and break down the content into smaller sections.

Here’s the first part - the dawn of electric motors, batteries, and the fledging automotive industry in the 19th Century.

Charging the Kona at Lochee Charging Hub in Dundee

Having had our first Electric Vehicle for a little over a year, we’ve made a few long journeys that require the use of public chargers. These are some of the experiences I’ve had and some of the things we learnt along the way.

Connectors

Most modern EVs have two connectors. This is what they look like.