SAE J1772

Normally, when your car runs out of fuel, you pull into a gas station and fill up. Most cars run on regular, though some cars run on premium, diesel, etc. If you have an electric car, you probably have to drive home to charge up you vehicle, and likely use a custom made charging port for your car that you plug in to a normal wall outlet. Well, all of that is changing. Enter the SAE J1772 standard outlet.

This plug will be the new “regular unleaded” for EV’s. It is being used on the new Nissan Leaf, the Chevy Volt, and even Tesla is likely to take advantage of it. On top of that, charging stations are being built around the country by several companies, most of which will use the J1772. Having a uniform standard is important for large scale production, and is a necessary step if EV’s are to become mainstream.

This may sound great, but here’s the most exciting part: we’re getting our own J1772 port. I have been in contact with Tim Rose, the managing director of REMA EV, a company which makes electric power connections. They have been kind enough to donate the port along with the appropriate connectors, and if all goes well we’ll be getting one for the elEVen very soon and one for the Porsche in a few weeks. When it arrives I will be figuring out a way to install the port where the fuel filler cap used to go, and soon after we will hopefully have a way to charge the elEVen’s batteries.