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Comment by cmrdporcupine | Hacker News Reader

They're not saying what the "vehicle adapter" spec is. I'm very curious.

I know that CHAdeMO is spec'd to allow vehicle-to-house, but good luck finding an inverter device that has a connector for. My 2018 Mitusbishi Outlander PHEV has a CHAdeMO outlet, it would be handy to take backup power from it as a generator. (I use the 12Amp outlet package on it for that, but that's only good for 1 appliance really).

If other people are right about it being NiMH this could actually be a really interesting product.

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The CCS connector equivalent is relying on the onboard DC-AC converter for V2L-V2G, hence no inverter needed.

The CCS cable uses a resistor between PE and PP pin to allow the EVSE to determine its current capacity, 1–2.7kΩ for single-phase 13A all the way down to 50–150Ω for three-phase 63A. [1]

What manufacturers have done is tap into that and use some resistance to tell the car to go to V2L mode.

- Hyundai IONIQ5 and Kia EV6 use 50-75Ω for its V2L adapter, offering 3.6kW load

- MG ZS uses 470Ω offering 2.2kW load

- Ford F-150 to offer 9.6kW load, but resistor is unknown

- BYD vehicles to offer 2.2kW load but resistor is unknown

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772#Proximity_Pilot

The Ioniq5/EV6 adapter only plugs into the J1772 port. This is not how the F-150 works for V2H. The F-150 hooks into the CCS pins underneath the J1772 plug, and mostly likely uses the same digital signaling used for CCS, instead of the PWM signaling used for J1772.

Either way, the resistor across the PP/PE pins is mostly not for current capacity of the EVSE, but rather just the cable (which isn't normally an issue, as the cable is going to be rated as high or higher than the EVSE, and generally isn't detachable for J1772). This is relevant only insofar as the Type 2 connector in EU (etc.) use the same technology (including signaling).

Generally speaking, I'd expect CCS connectors to rely on an off-board inverter, as they can be built in a less weight conscious manner.

That's interesting that the Kia/Hyundai system uses J1772. I guess that means the output current is AC? Maybe easier to work with, in terms of wiring to the mains?

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