SAE Committee Selects Conductive Technology
27 May 1998
SAE Committee Selects Conductive Technology for Use As a Universal Electric Vehicle Charging StandardWARRENDALE, 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.