Charging cables

While I had a demo car for the weekend, I didn't get chance to find out if the charging cable supplied with the car as standard is compatible with the charging columns being installed at my place of work. Does the UK version come with a Type 2 male (5 pin, circular, plugs into car) and J1772 female (7 pin, circular with flat side, plugs into charging column) cable? Could anyone post a pic showng the charge column connection end of the cable that comes with the car (number of pins, shape of plug, etc)?

Many thanks!

The cable supplied with the British model terminates in a standard 3 pin 13A plug.

Really? By standard 3 pin 13A you mean the same as you'd plug your kettle into in your kitchen? So everyone who charges at their place of work has had to purchase a separate cable from Mitsubishi? (assuming work place charging points do not have tethered cables, so can be universal)

Thanks; glad I asked about this!

DrSlackBladder said:

Really? By standard 3 pin 13A you mean the same as you'd plug your kettle into in your kitchen? So everyone who charges at their place of work has had to purchase a separate cable from Mitsubishi? (assuming work place charging points do not have tethered cables, so can be universal)

Thanks; glad I asked about this!

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Indeed so! And the additional cable from Mitsubishi is very expensive! You can find third-party cables at not much more than half the price on the web - but even those are ridiculously expensive at around £150!

Yeah, just found both the £300 Mitsi and £150 alternates - also just been told that my company will buy the cable for me

DrSlackBladder said:

Yeah, just found both the £300 Mitsi and £150 alternates - also just been told that my company will buy the cable for me

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Our company will buy it for us - but we own the company, so it's still money out of our pockets! Only plus side is that we get tax relief against it.

Hmm was going to post this question too. Reason being we took our short term Ampera to town today, only to find we couldn't charge it in the public car park for this very reason.

Not happy the phev doesn't come with the required cable either. Will be taking this up with my works lease company in the hope they'll provide one or at least foot the bill.

david1972 said:

Hmm was going to post this question too. Reason being we took our short term Ampera to town today, only to find we couldn't charge it in the public car park for this very reason.

Not happy the phev doesn't come with the required cable either. Will be taking this up with my works lease company in the hope they'll provide one or at least foot the bill.

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I guess that the rationale is that relatively few owners are going to charge at public points and the subsidy on the installation of home charging points cannot be relied upon to continue - the 13A plug is the most pragmatic solution for most of us. We got a Charge Master point installed while it was still free and chose the version without the captive cable, so I'll be ordering a charging cable too.

DrSlackBladder said:

Yeah, just found both the £300 Mitsi and £150 alternates - also just been told that my company will buy the cable for me

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Has anyone got a link for these? Preferably AU? I need to purchase one because I'm too lazy to unplug it in the morning and take it with me (truth be told, there's so much stuff in the back that it becomes a chore, and I can't actually open the back door without a lot of hassle in the shed) so I'd like one to keep in there 'just in case' I need to charge up at anywhere that doesn't have the right outlet.

thegurio said:

DrSlackBladder said:

Yeah, just found both the £300 Mitsi and £150 alternates - also just been told that my company will buy the cable for me

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Has anyone got a link for these? Preferably AU? I need to purchase one because I'm too lazy to unplug it in the morning and take it with me (truth be told, there's so much stuff in the back that it becomes a chore, and I can't actually open the back door without a lot of hassle in the shed) so I'd like one to keep in there 'just in case' I need to charge up at anywhere that doesn't have the right outlet.

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I only know of UK based internet retailers, but have you checked your local eBay? Always some on the eBay.co.uk : http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Type-2-Menekkes-to-Type-1-J1772-EV-Charge-Cable-32A-5M-/251593767686?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3a94283b06#ht_1246wt_1275

I think if you asked most people they would want a 3 pin home charger rather than a Type 2>Type 1 cable supplied. I don't know about anyone else but due to the short range of the EV mode it will not make sense to join up to all the different EV charge point suppliers. Some of them want £50 just to join then £7 to charge, :shock: it just isn't worth it. Different if you drive a Nissan Leaf with 100 mile range it is worth the £7 but you may as well use petrol after you run out of electric on the PHEV.

chindley said:

I think if you asked most people they would want a 3 pin home charger rather than a Type 2>Type 1 cable supplied. I don't know about anyone else but due to the short range of the EV mode it will not make sense to join up to all the different EV charge point suppliers. Some of them want £50 just to join then £7 to charge, :shock: it just isn't worth it. Different if you drive a Nissan Leaf with 100 mile range it is worth the £7 but you may as well use petrol after you run out of electric on the PHEV.

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I think that is probably true - with the proviso that the subsidy on home charging points has slightly skewed the market. If we had had to pay the official figure of close to £1000 for our charging point, we would be charging via a 13A socket - as it is, we have had a Charge Master point fitted and I'll be ordering a Type2>Type1 cable which, as it happens, will allow me to charge from public points too. Given that it will take several hours to get any significant amount of charge into the batteries, I don't see this as a frequent activity - if I'm going into a supermarket that has a socket, I don't think I'll be bothering with getting the cable out considering that I'll probably be there for less than half an hour. Once or twice per month, I may go in to our London office with an option of picking up a charge in one of several public car parks within walking distance - I may well do that given that I'll be spending five or six hours in the office and will be able to pick up a full charge.

So it seems there are four cable options I have for plugging into the work place Type 2 Fast Charge Point - Type 2/Type 2 which I guess plugs into the large socket on the car, or Type 1/Type 2 which is the smaller pistol grip type for the smaller car socket. Then each of these cables can be either 16A or 32A. I've read that regular fast charge is not a good idea, and it also only gets to 80% charge (albeit in 30 mins), so I'm thinking a Type 1/Type 2 cable is best. But is it ok to plug a fast charger into the Type 1 car socket? And are there any requirements/pros/cons for 32A over 16A rating?

Thanks for the help guys (and girls)!

DrSlackBladder said:

So it seems there are four cable options I have for plugging into the work place Type 2 Fast Charge Point - Type 2/Type 2 which I guess plugs into the large socket on the car, or Type 1/Type 2 which is the smaller pistol grip type for the smaller car socket. Then each of these cables can be either 16A or 32A. I've read that regular fast charge is not a good idea, and it also only gets to 80% charge (albeit in 30 mins), so I'm thinking a Type 1/Type 2 cable is best. But is it ok to plug a fast charger into the Type 1 car socket? And are there any requirements/pros/cons for 32A over 16A rating?

Thanks for the help guys (and girls)!

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A good question that hopefully one of our owners will be able to answer for you, based on experience. I'm certainly very interested in the reply too

Hi
No that's not quite right - the large socket on the car is only for 'rapid' charging via CHAdeMO. These are typically found at Motorway service stations (or IKEA I think) and run by Ecotricity so you need an Ecotricity card. They will only charge up to 80% (although the only time I have tried it so far it carried on up to c90%). These chargers have their own lead so you don't need to worry about that.

You can charge via a standard 13A wall socket (this is via the lead which comes with the car). Full charge takes c5 hours.

You can have a home charge point installed - either tethered or non-tethered (i.e. with or without its own cable attached). These come in 16A or 32A variants but the Outlander can only use 16A in any case. The basic unit used to be fitted free but this is just in the process of changing. Full charge takes c3.5 hours.

For most public charging you will need a type 2 to type 1 cable. (Type 2, sometimes called Mennekes, is what goes into the charge point; type 1, also called J1772, goes into the car). Time varies with the power of the unit, but is usually 'fast', i.e. similar to the 3.5 hour for a full charge. The card you need to use these varies from region to region.

I'm still a relative noob so happy to be corrected on any of this....

What a great reply - thanks jdsx

Thanks for the response jdsx, although my question still remains unanswered; maybe I misunderstand something really simple.....

I know about the cable that comes with the car (13 A household 3 pin plug with small car socket Type 1 on the other end. I have a ChargeMaster unit installed at my house which has a tethered small car socket Type 1 on the end. My question relates purely to charging at my place of work, where they have installed Fast Charge columns which do not have tethered cables (so as to be able to take multiple brands of EV), but take a Type 2 plug at the column. So if I understand correctly, the large Type 2 socket on the car is for fast charging, which I should avoid for regular charging at work to preserve battery capacity. Does this mean that if I got a cable with Type 2 on one end (to connect to the charger) and a Type 1 on the other (to connect to the small socket on the car), then the fast charger would give my car a slow/standard charge? Or would it be a fast charge through the smaller socket? And still, should I only get the 16A rated cable or doesn't it matter?

Thanks again!

Hi
Ah I understand now. No the large socket is not a "type 2" socket. Outlander has a type 1 socket and a CHAdeMO. So for charging at work you will need a type 2 to type 1 cable as described before. (If you had a car with a type 2 socket you would need a 'type 2 to type 2' cable.) The speed of charging depends on the unit, but is normally described as 'fast' ('slow' is the 13A home system, 'rapid' is usually CHAdeMO). I would probably get a 32A cable: the price difference is small over a 16A cable, and I have heard that some 'fast' chargers aren't happy using a 16A cable, but somebody here will probably know more...

Thanks jdsx, I understand better now. I was thinking the larger PHEV socket was a Type 2 connection, which was getting me confused. It doesn't help that I don't actually have the car yet, therefore no detailed instruction manuals etc. So I need the cable shown on the left side of this link, in 32A.

https://evconnectors.com/ev-plug-mitsubishi-outlander-phev-cable

Hi
Yes, that looks right. I got mine from nuworldenergy.co.uk as total incl vat and delivery was best at that time (late june). I have now used it too, at an ecotricity site that had a normal (non-chademo) charger - at their Green Britain Centre in Norfolk - and got an almost full charge in 3 hours.
Cheers
H