SAE Committee Selects Conductive Technology

27 May 1998

    WARRENDALE, Pa., May 27 -- After 18 months of extensive
deliberations and testing, the Society of Automotive Engineers Electric
Vehicle Charging Systems Committee has voted to adopt a charge coupler design
based on butt type contact technology for incorporation into the SAE J1772
Recommended Practice for EV Conductive Charge Coupler.
    The decision marks a significant milestone in the effort to establish a
single EV charging standard and sets the stage for a marketplace competition
with the inductive charging system described in SAE J1773 -- Recommended
Practice for EV Inductive Charge Coupler.
    "The vigorous competition resulted in improvements in both designs under
consideration," said Craig Toepfer, chairman of the SAE Electric Vehicle
Charging Systems Committee.  "The committee members carefully weighed the test
results, evaluated the compliance of each design with the performance and
functional requirements specified in J1772 -- including human factors and the
perception of safety -- and chose the design they felt represented the best
technology for the application."
    Committee members worked closely with the Electric Power Research
Institute Infrastructure Working Council, the International Electrotechnical
Commission (IEC) and the Japan Electric Vehicle Association (JEVA) to
establish a common conductive EV charging system architecture, which was
published in October, 1996, as J1772.
    Subsequent coupler environmental and durability testing sponsored by
EPRI-IWC and corrosion testing conducted by Underwriters Laboratories, Inc.
led a substantial majority of the committee members to select the butt type
contact technology as the preferred EV charging coupler.
    The committee will now update SAE J1772 to include the selected technology
in the body of the recommended practice.  Further compliance testing will take
place during the updating of J1772.
    The pin and sleeve technology -- which has been adopted by JEVA as the
standard in Japan -- will continue to be included in the appendix of J1772 for
reference.  SAE J1772 and the selected coupler have also been closely
coordinated with IEC to incorporate unique requirements for European markets
and ultimately consideration as an international standard.