Types of AC Electric Vehicle Charging Ports Around the World

In today’s fast-growing EV market, EV charging stations are becoming an integral part of modern households. Combining convenience and sustainability, they not only improve charging efficiency but also provide significant convenience to users. Today, let’s take a look at the differences between the various charging port standards.

In the next section we provide a brief overview of the development and a description of the individual connectors.

J1772 - Type 1

In California, a square plug called the J1772 was introduced in 2001, but it was only capable of producing 6.6 kW, so in 2008, Yazaki developed a new 19.2 kW plug, which became standard on all American cars in 2010. Today's Yazaki development is the new J1772, often referred to as the J-plug or Type1

Mennekes - Type 2

European cars used the Type 1 connector until the major European car manufacturers started looking for a new solution that could use all three phases. In 2003, the new IEC 62196 specifications were established, based on which the Type 2 "mennekes" connector was produced and it quickly became the new European standard. Due to the fact that both connector types (Type 1 and 2) use the same J1772 signaling protocol for communication, car manufacturers can manufacture vehicles in the same way and only at the very end they set the connector type that corresponds to the market where the car will be sold. Among these types, there are also passive adapters. Another important advantage of the Type 2 connector is that it supports the built-in automatic locking system.

(The Type 2 fork is called Mennekes because it was a German company of the same name that developed the design for this fork. The term "Mennekes design" was often mentioned in texts and began to be used by the general public.)