How to electrify Your Car With AC & DC Charging

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Welcome to how to elect...

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Hi, I'm Sarah Aubrey from Electrify This. Welcome to how to electrify your car and navigate AC and DC charging.

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I'll be sharing what I've learnt on my own electrification journey to help make yours simpler and easier.

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Electrifying your car isn't just about switching from petrol to electric.

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It's about driving cheaper, quieter, cleaner and with a lot less hassle once you understand how it works.

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Also, instant torque.

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One of the biggest benefits of owning an EV is how much control you get over energy costs.

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Most people charge at home overnight.

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In fact, 70% of Australians can charge at home when electricity is cheapest or even free if you have solar.

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When you start looking at EVs, you'll see terms like AC charging, DC charging, slow, fast kilowatts, and it can really feel overwhelming.

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But don't worry, we're going to break it all down and explain exactly how EV charging works, what AC and DC charging actually mean, how much different charging options cost, how to charge in a way that's not just cheaper but also courteous to other EV drivers.

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By the time we're finished, you'll be an EV charging pro.

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This is what an EV charge port looks like.

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If you're doing home charging, you're going to be doing AC charging, which means you're going to be using this top charge port.

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The connector looks like this, and you just plug it into the top.

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If you want to use a DC charger, you want to use both of these charge ports and the connector looks like this.

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The vast majority of EV owners actually just charge at home from a standard powerpoint.

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If you go on a specific EV plan, you can charge from as little as eight cents a kWh from midnight to 6:00am, or free if you have solar.

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That's definitely the most affordable way to charge, and you can add in one hour, 10 kilometres of range.

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So if you think overnight, you can add up to 100 kilometres.

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The average Australian travels about 36 kilometres a day, so you'd plug in maybe 2-3 times a week easy.

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The next upgrade EV owners make from typically a standard powerpoint is to get a dedicated EV charger installed.

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This is called a level 2 charger.

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It's 7 kilowatts, but this is really the bees knees.

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This will give you 40 kilometres in just one hour, so very much an excellent choice if you do lots and lots of driving.

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Comes of two kinds, tethered and untethered.

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This is an untethered which means got your own separate cable or tethered means there's a cable permanently attached.

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One of the reasons you might opt for an untethered charger is you might need a longer cable than 8 metres, but also it might be on the front of your house and you don't want someone nicking your electricity and plugging their car in.

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There are also different types of chargers.

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There are smart and dumb chargers, no offence to dumb chargers.

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Cheaper ones you just sort of plug and play, but chargers like this come with an app and you can actually just charge off solar if you want to or you can lock it.

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Really they just give you more control.

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So I have just plugged the car in.

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We're at 55% at the moment, 6.9 kilowatt speed, which is fantastic.

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So yes, we will be adding 40 kilometres in just one hour.

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It's three hours and 15 minutes until we get to 80% and we're charging from the solar right now.

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Now charging the car for free.

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Amazing.

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So my personal journey was that I installed a 15-amp charger so I could have quicker charging than a standard powerpoint, so 20 kilometres in one hour.

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But I didn't really find that quick enough and I really wanted to utilise solar, so I installed the seven-kilowatt charger.

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40 kilometres in one hour means the cable's not running out to the street for as long and I really, really love it.

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But if I can't get that charging spot out the front, I just go to a public charger.

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Next step in AC charging is the fastest type of AC charging, which is 22-kilowatt AC charging.

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You'll need your own cable though.

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This is a type 2 to type 2 cable.

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When you plug it in, this is locked so no one can steal your cable.

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So this is a 50-kilowatt DC charger.

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These are technically slow.

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Now, these are one of the first chargers to go in.

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So there are two ways to use this charger, via the app or via an RFID card.

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So before you come and use it, a hot tip is to actually sign up, set up your account, put all your payment details in first.

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So you open it up, you select your charger, and then you just connect, right?

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It's that simple.

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But there's another way, which is even easier.

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You can get an RFID card so just looks like a credit card, and you can put the number that's on that card into your account.

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And it means when I turn up like this, I can just tap.

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When you start charging, that is what the pros do.

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So that fifty-kilowatt charger is about $0.60 a kWh, which isn't too bad.

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Basically, the faster the charger goes, the more expensive it gets.

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Some of the Tesla Superchargers, for example, are nearly a dollar at peak time.

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But you get what you pay for in terms of convenience.

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It's still cheaper than petrol though.

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As an example of destination chargers or charging, I'm at the shopping centre.

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You've got DC chargers here.

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You could come once a week and do your grocery shop.

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This takes about 45-50 minutes.

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This is a great option.

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There's also a gym here.

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Our costs are unused 95% of the time.

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The great thing about coming to say, a destination charger, you can just do it while you do something else.

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Here's another example of destination charging.

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These are 22-kilowatt AC chargers.

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People have plugged their cars in here.

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They've got to bring their own cable, just like the pole charger, and they've gone off and done something else.

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They could be shopping, going to the gym, living their life.

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You then step up to chargers like this, Tesla Superchargers.

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These are 250-kilowatt DC chargers.

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These are the kind of things that you'll use on road trips.

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Charge really quickly, 15 to 20 minutes and you're on your way.

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But if you're in a car that isn't a Tesla, you can also use them.

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You open the app, find a charger, it's recognised I'm here in Alexandria.

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I press charge here.

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The bottom of this charger there is a number and a letter saying 2B.

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I select it, grab the connector and start charging.

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DC charging etiquette.

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Only charge your EV to 80%.

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After 80% it really, really slows down.

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And once you're finished move your car straight away because you will be charged idle fees and someone else might want to use that charger.

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Have you heard of the term icing?

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No, it's not the stuff that goes on a cake.

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It is actually a real problem.

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It's when someone in an internal combustion engine vehicle parks in and therefore blocks an EV charging bay.

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It's a real problem.

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It's a finable offence, but someone might be really desperate to charge an EV and you're blocking it.

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So please don't park in an EV charging bay unless you are an EV.

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And if you are an EV, make sure you are charging.

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If you’re going to take away anything from this episode, let it be these three things.

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Remember, you can charge at home on a standard powerpoint.

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You can add 10 kilometres in one hour.

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Or a 7-kilowatt charger.

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You can add 40 kilometres in just one hour.

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When buying a car, pay attention to the AC and DC charging rate.

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And DC charging is fast but more expensive.

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You probably won't even use it that often.

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There you go.

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I hope this episode has helped you learn how to charge cheaper, faster, and with confidence no matter where you plug in.

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Don't forget to check out our other videos on this How to Electrify series to help you on your journey.

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If you'd like more information or handy resources on electrification, visit goodenergy.ausgrid.com.au.

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Otherwise Bindi might growl at you.