The establishment of carbon reduction policies and transition into e-mobilities have resulted in rapid growth in the electric vehicle (EV) market. With the successful launch of many EV brands, we will soon enter an era of EVs. As a result, R&D on EV charger products and the deployment of charging stations have emerged as key problems. Regardless of whether DC charging or AC charging setups are used or if they are required to support different charging standard and power ratings, EV charger products are becoming increasingly ubiquitous. This growth in the availability of charging services is reducing EV owners’ concerns regarding range anxiety.
Given that EVs and EV chargers are centered on electricity, their safety and functionality are subject to strict inspections to ensure public safety. However, different EVs adopt different charging standard (e.g., CCS1 and CCS2) and different communication protocols (e.g., DIN and ISO). This problem is not unlike trying to communicate speaking different languages. Whether an EV and EV charger can communicate smoothly also affects charging. To ensure smooth charging process between different EV chargers and different types of EVs from different brands, Taiwan’s Bureau of Standards, Metrology, and Inspection established the “CNS15511 Electric Vehicle Conductive Charging System” to ensure that the quality and safety of EV charger products satisfy minimum requirements.
Conditions and difficulties in EV charging tests
Problems affecting conventional EV charging tests include the process being time-intensive and inconsistent testing accuracies. In particular, the product characteristics of EVs and EV chargers may involve the following issues:
- Wide output power range of EV chargers:Unlike gas stations, EV chargers can be established in different parking areas, such as in residential or commercial buildings or in conventional public parking lots. Because AC and DC chargers can range from 7kW to 350kW at different sites, this wide output power range poses a challenge for product verification and testing.
- “Multilingual” communication protocols:EVs “speak” different languages. Thus, how they communicate with EV charger equipment in the charging process can present a problem. Just like conducting language proficiency tests, they must satisfy specific communication tests for different languages to ensure a smooth charging process.
- Dynamically evolving global regulations:EVs have undergone rapid advancements in the past decade. EVs and their charging equipment continue to improve daily, and global regulations must be optimized and updated accordingly. A reliable testing system must be able to keep up with changing regulations, which require constant updating.
To meet relevant inspection policy demands, Taiwan’s quintessential inspection institution, the Taiwan Electric Research & Testing Center (TERTEC), implemented Delta’s automatic test system to increase their testing capacity for EV and EV charger communication protocols.
Delta’s automatic test system prepares for future testing demands on communication protocols
Delta has built its automatic test system based on years of R&D and production experience in EV electronics and EV chargers. For the research stage of charger equipment and EV development, considerable effort is made to resolve common pain points related to testing, such as the process being time-consuming, test equipment having limited test coverage, and available test items no longer aligning with current regulations. Thus, Delta uses automated testing to substantially improve testing efficiency and accuracy.
The Delta automatic test system comes with the built-in Delta Smart 1 testing software platform, and it adopts the Vector VT system approved by vehicle manufacturers to code communication protocol testing items*. This integrated design is specifically for testing EVs and charger equipment. It can be used to simulate a charger or an EV in order to test communication between the two. It simulates real charging scenarios and verifies the handshake ability of EVs and chargers and is thus able to precisely test for compatibility and interoperability. Users simply need to select a testing items and it starts testing, thus reducing the learning curve and shortening test times. The system supports mainstream charging standards for EVs in addition to low-power AC chargers up to 360kW DC for charging communication protocol tests. This means that both vehicles and chargers can be tested accurately using the same system.
*Mainstream communication protocols including ISO 15118-1, ISO 15118-2, ISO 15118-3, ISO 15118-4, ISO 15118-5, DIN 70121 / 70122, CHAdeMO 0.9, CHAdeMO 1.2, CHAdeMO 2.0, and GB/T 34658.
The Delta automatic test system uses an open architecture. It can reference actual testing demands to enable flexible selection of optimal equipment combinations. For future expansion, the built-in test items can be updated as global regulations change. Thus, it is highly adaptable for future developments and changes in EVs and charger equipment.
The era of EV is coming, where EVs can travel between cities with chargers installed in convenient locations for owners to charge their vehicle at any time. Thus, to ensure safety and efficiency during EV charging, it is critical to practice verification testing. For these reasons, TERTEC has adopted the Delta automatic test system to assist in the verification and testing of EVs and charger products in Taiwan.