BAFFLED BY ELECTRIC CAR JARGON? YOUR GUIDE TO DECODING THE FUTURE IS HERE

EV

Let’s start with a simple one. EV means electric vehicle, as opposed to one powered by petrol, diesel, used chip oil, Chanel No 5 or magic.

BEV

People in the car industry like to use this one. It stands for battery electric vehicle, as opposed to, say, an FCEV (fuel cell electric vehicle) that’s powered by hydrogen. We just call them EVs.

ICE

The internal combustion engine. Confusingly, ICE can also stand for in-car entertainment (ie the stereo, touchscreen and so on).

PHEV

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, or a hybrid with a bigger battery that you can plug in to charge, giving you a short, say 20-mile, electriconly range. Amazing taxdodging mpg figures in the official tests, not so amazing in real life... unless you plug in every night and use the car exclusively for short trips.

MHEV

The mild hybrid EV, or MHEV, the very bottom rung of the electrified vehicle ladder. A small electric motor assists the engine, but doesn’t have enough gumption to push the car on its own. MHEVs usually manage a fuel saving of about 10 per cent compared with a pure petrol car.

REX

Refers to range extenders, or small internal combustion engines used as generators to recharge EV batteries on the move. The engine can be run at its most efficient rpm, converting fuel to electricity, which is fed to the motors that supply the motive force.

Volts, amps and watts

We’re going to go full science teacher on you and use an analogy. Imagine a river: the volts are how fast the river flows, the amps are how much water is flowing, and the watts are how easily it’ll carry you downstream.

kW

Logical, metric countries use kilowatt to measure power from petrol and diesel engines. For the rest of us a kilowatt is 1,000 watts, and is the most common measure of power in an EV. A kilowatt is equal to about 1.34bhp.

kWh

Stands for kilowatt hours and can cut two ways – how much power you’ve used (which a utilities bill does), or how much capacity there is in a battery. For instance, a Tesla Model S has 100kWh of capacity, of which you’ll be able to use about 90, because fully depleting a battery is a great way to ruin it forever.

AC and DC

AC stands for alternating current, and DC stands for Batman comics... er, wait... direct current. AC’s better for long-distance transmission, because it can easily be transformed (to higher voltage, lower current, so fewer heat losses). Transforming DC power is a faff but, because DC charging stations can be as big as they need to be, they can employ high-voltage power, giant transformers and rectifiers and get huge power – up to 350kW.

Slow, fast and rapid charging

Slow or level 1 charging is when you use a regular wall plug. Fast or level 2 refers to street chargers and the boxes you can install in your house or office, which go up to 7.4kW on normal 240V single phase AC, or 22kW on industrial three phase. Rapid or level 3 is the high power DC supply, the sort you’ll find at motorway services and dedicated charging areas, from 50kW up to 360kW.

CHAdeMO

CHAdeMO is not the result of a cat walking across a keyboard. It’s basically the fast charging standard Japan came up with. Competing standards include CCS and Tesla Superchargers, which all look reaaaaally similar.

CCS

The DC charger you’ll most likely use across the UK and Europe. Works in everything from a Tesla to a VW.

Supercharging

If it looks like a CCS charger and works like a CCS charger, it could very well be a Tesla Supercharger. But you can’t use it unless you’re in a Tesla.

mpkWh

Not content with the unholy union of litres of petrol and pints of milk, the UK’s uneasy blend of metric and ReesMogg leaves us measuring EV economy in miles per kilowatt hour. So, if you have 50 usable kWh, and run at 4.0mpkWh, you’ll do 200 miles before you’re stranded.

WLTP

Stands for Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure. A way to test new cars to see how much fuel, or energy, they use, how much greenhouse gas they expel, and how far they get on one tank/charge. More accurate than the old NEDC standard, but still optimistic.

Regen

Shorthand for ‘regenerative braking’. Electric motors work by using electricity and magnets to spin a shaft. So, if you were to spin it manually, say, by coasting, you will then generate electricity, because generators are basically motors operating the opposite way.

Range

How far you’ll get in your car from the amount of energy you put into it. So, it’s been fuel from a tank for most of your life, now it’s a battery.

Range anxiety

The fear of being very far from home, on a dark and cold night, without enough power to make it to a charging station. In the short term, the solution is more rapid charge stations, in the long term, better energy density and more efficient cars should ease our furrowed brows.

Li-ion

A contraction of lithium-ion, which refers to the chemical make-up of a typical battery pack. The 12V brick used to start your petrol powered car is a lead-acid battery, but lithium-ion is now the global norm for powering new EVs.

Solid-state battery

The next big step in battery tech – holds more energy than an equivalent-sized li-ion battery, or the same amount of energy but in a smaller and lighter pack. They’re easier to cool, too, which means you can charge them quicker before they get too hot. At least five years until any come to market.

Supercapacitor

Supercapacitors can charge and discharge more quickly than regular batteries – good for bursts of speed – and can tolerate more charge and discharge cycles, but they’re still not as energy dense as batteries, so you’re unlikely to see them as direct battery replacements. More likely to supplement a petrol engine’s performance. See the Lamborghini Sián.

CCZ

The congestion charge zone that covers central London. From 7am to 6pm on weekdays, or 12pm-6pm at weekends and on bank holidays it’ll cost you £15 to drive in this zone. But, with a zero emission car you can fill out a form and pay a oneoff £10 for an exemption that lasts a year.

ULEZ

The CCZ is there to ease traffic; London’s Ultra Low Emissons Zone is to ease pollution. The ULEZ is in effect every hour of every day, and will rain down with great vengeance and furious application of a £12.50 charge if you drive into the zone in a petrol car that doesn’t meet Euro 4 standards or a diesel car that doesn’t meet Euro 6 standards. The good news is that full EVs are exempt.

FCEV

Fuel cell electric vehicles, like the Toyota Mirai. Separating hydrogen and oxygen takes a lot of energy, but reuniting them in just the right way releases energy. You can burn hydrogen, but in a hydrogen fuel cell you generate electricity to drive an electric motor. It’s also easier to move H2 over long distances than electricity.