If you have recently purchased or are looking to purchase an electric vehicle, you will no doubt want to understand all the details of the charging process. One thing that you will need to account for is the different EV charging connector types and this will depend on the type of vehicle you have.

One thing to take into account when it comes to charging your EV is that there will be a specific connection on the chargepoint and on the vehicle itself. In this blog, we outline the different EV charging connector types and look at the cables you will need for your electric vehicle.

Slow and fast charging

These are the most common types of charging that you will use when you’re at home or at work. The chargepoint socket will almost always be a type 2 – this can be thought of as a universal, Europe-wide socket for charging electric vehicles.

However, different vehicles will have different connector types on them, so you will need to ensure you have the appropriate cable to connect your vehicle to the charging point.

Type 2 to Type 2

The type 2 connector is the standard European socket and it has 7 pins and an inbuilt locking mechanism. The typical current for these charging cables is 16 amps or 32 amps – here at Delta Impact, our cables are 32 amps. It may be possible to do three-phase charging with a type 2 connector, a more powerful type of charging, but not all vehicles are capable of this yet.

Type 1 to Type 2

Not all vehicles have a type 2 connector as some will have a type 1 connector type, which is the standard US socket. It has 5 pins, no locking mechanism and uses single-phase charging only. Once again, the typical current for these charging cables is 16 amps or 32 amps – here at Delta Impact, our cables are 32 amps.

Different lengths

Another thing to take into account when you are looking at charging cables for your car is the length of the cable itself. Our cables, for example, come in 5m and 10m lengths depending on how much leeway you need in terms of the distance between the vehicle and the charging point.

If you aren’t sure what you require for your vehicle, you can use our electric vehicle connection type calculator.

You can also view our selection of EV charging connector cables, tethered cables and charging sockets, which include Type 2 to Type 2 and Type 1 to Type 2 in varying lengths.

Rapid charging

Rapid charging uses direct current (DC) and tends to be used far less at locations like home or work, only being necessary when you need to charge en route on a long journey. All DC units have tethered cables that match the car-side connectors, so there are no chargepoint-side DC sockets that you need to account for. The connections on your car, however, will be different to those outlined above.

CHAdeMO

This is the original DC connector and is the most common type found in the UK.

Combined Charging System (CCS)

This type tends to be more powerful than the CHAdeMO and is likely to become more popular for electric vehicles.

Type 2

It is still possible to get DC via a type 2 connector, but this is only possible on certain Tesla models at the moment.

To get started with getting all the essentials for your electric vehicle, you can browse our EV shop.