Charging light electric vehicles

The development of electric vehicles as a substitute for fossil-fuel vehicles is one of the levers of the environmental transition, which is mobilizing major political, economic and industrial efforts. The adequacy of charging infrastructures for electric vehicles (IRVE) is one of the keys to their development.

This article reviews the principles, technologies and implementation of recharging infrastructures for light electric vehicles (passenger cars and commercial vehicles under 3.5 t); it does not deal with heavy vehicles, whose needs and technologies are more specific. It mainly concerns infrastructures installed in France, as part of the European market organization.

At the time of writing, the development of electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles is approaching the mass market, with a penetration rate for new vehicles approaching 25% and over 1.5 million charging points (private and public) in service in France and 10 million in Europe, including over 120,000 open to the public in France. Annual growth in sales of electric vehicles has reached 50% by 2023, in France and Europe . The development of charging infrastructures must keep pace with this growth, and even anticipate it.

The transition to this market dimension implies an industrial and organizational change compared to the first attempts at development which, notably, date back to the end of the 19th century and remained in "eternal emergence" until recent years.

Electric vehicle recharging represents a profound change in habits compared with "filling up" at service stations, and new users are concerned about its ability to meet their needs. Indeed, even if new battery technologies offer autonomies approaching those of gasoline or diesel vehicles, recharging is subject to the constraints specific to electricity:

• an "energy density" much lower than that of fuels, as illustrated by the fact that the useful energy power of a petrol pump is equivalent to the power of a TGV at full speed (2 to 3 MW);

• and a highly variable cost of access to electrical power (low for a home, but much higher for fast-charging stations), resulting from the cost of any network reinforcements, or even peak production resources.

This means, as we shall see, that high-power recharging must not be systematized, and that the power of each recharge must be continuously adjusted. Added to this are the safety obligations inherent in electrical installations, as well as the need for reliability and service quality...