These are the words as this site uses them, and where a term has a number behind it in the directory, the number is in the definition. Each one has its own anchor, so a definition can be linked or quoted on its own.
Find a term · 36 definitions
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Current, power and energy
The four words that cause most of the confusion, then the billing terms behind a price.
AC#
Alternating current. What the grid supplies, and what a Level 2 post sends down the cable. An AC charger does not charge the battery directly: the car turns AC into DC first.
DC#
Direct current. What a battery stores, and what a DC fast charger feeds it from a rectifier in the station rather than in the car. That is why the car's onboard charger plays no part in a fast stop.
kW#
Kilowatt: a rate of power. A post rated 150 kW can move 150 kWh in an hour if it holds that rate for the hour, which a battery rarely lets it do from start to finish.
kWh#
Kilowatt-hour: a quantity of energy. A 60 kWh pack holds 60 kWh, and half an hour at an average 100 kW puts 50 kWh into it. The battery is sized in kWh, the post in kW, and the two are not interchangeable.
EVSE#
Electric vehicle supply equipment: the station side of the job — cabinet, cable, connector and controls. A “charger” on this site means the same thing.
Connector vs charger#
The connector is the plug on the cable; the charger is the equipment behind it. The same connector sits on a 3.3 kW post and a 19.2 kW wall unit, so the shape tells you what fits, not how fast.
Onboard charger#
The AC-to-DC converter inside the car. It caps AC charging whatever the post offers: a 19.2 kW post gives a car with an 11 kW onboard charger 11 kW.
Public tariff#
The per-kWh price a network publishes for a station. 3,805 of the 6,338 stations here list one, and the median is $0.35. Session fees, idle fees and taxes sit outside it.
Demand charge#
What a utility bills a site for its peak power draw, rather than for the energy it sells. Fast sites carry a large one, which is part of why a public kilowatt-hour costs more than a home one.
Connectors
Four plugs, and the counts this directory holds for each of them.
J1772#
SAE J1772, the round AC connector. 5,294 stations here list it and every one is AC; 102 of the 108 models list it as an AC inlet.
CCS1#
SAE J1772 CCS Combo 1: the J1772 shape with two DC pins added underneath. 930 stations list it, 740 of them at 50 kW or more, and 96 models list it as a DC inlet — every one of those also lists J1772 for AC.
NACS#
The North American Charging Standard, standardized as SAE J3400. One oval carries AC and DC. 517 stations here list it and 117 of those are 50 kW or more, so most NACS posts are slow ones. The records put it on 6 of the 108 models, because the port data comes from older trims — the connector guide explains that gap.
CHAdeMO#
An older DC fast standard, large and heavy. 364 stations here list it, 331 at 50 kW or more, and 3 models use it — the Leaf, the Soul EV and the i-MiEV.
Adapter#
A physical bridge between two connector types. It fixes the plug, not the permission and not the rate: the session runs at the lower of the two limits, and a station can still refuse a car that fits.
Charge port#
The socket on the car. Most non-Tesla EVs have one port with a J1772 top for AC and two CCS1 pins for DC; a NACS car has one oval that does both. It is the port, not the badge, that decides which cable fits.
Charging sessions
From a wall socket to a 350 kW cabinet, and the words that describe what happens at the post.
Level 1#
120 V AC at about 1.4 kW, adding 4–6 miles an hour. 191 stations here list a wall outlet, which is the Level 1 case: a top-up, not a plan.
Level 2#
240 V AC, typically 6–19 kW, adding roughly 10–60 miles an hour depending on car and post. Almost all of the 5,294 J1772 stations here are Level 2, and every NACS destination post is too.
DC fast#
DC charging at 50 kW or more. 749 stations here report 50 kW or more and 221 report 150 kW or more. The rate tapers as the battery fills, so the figure is a ceiling, not an average.
Level 3#
Not a formal level. The standards define Level 1 and Level 2 AC charging and DC fast charging; “Level 3” is shorthand people use for DC fast, and a station that calls itself that is not quoting a standard.
10–80%#
The usual fast-charging window: it skips the slow top of the pack, so a road-trip stop is measured this way. The quickest car here, the Audi RS e-tron, quotes 16 minutes from 10% to 80%.
Taper#
The fall in power as the battery fills, managed by the car to protect the cells. It is why the last 20% of a fast charge takes as long as the first 50%, and why a 350 kW rating is not a promise.
Load sharing#
When a site splits its available power between cars. Two cars on one cabinet can each get half of what the label says, which is worth knowing at a busy site.
Preconditioning#
Warming or cooling the battery before a fast stop so it can take full power when you plug in. It is usually a car setting or a navigation instruction, and it is the single easiest way to shorten a winter stop.
Destination charger#
A Tesla Wall Connector at a hotel, restaurant or workplace, listed as a Destination charger. AC Level 2, an hours-long stop. 166 sites here carry that listing.
Supercharger#
Tesla's DC fast network, 150–350 kW at the cabinet. A stop is measured in minutes, billing runs through a Tesla account, and a growing number of sites admit other makes.
Idle fee#
A charge for staying plugged in after charging finishes, billed on top of the per-kWh price. It is not in any median on this site.
Session fee#
A fixed charge to start a session, added to the per-kWh price by some networks. On a short top-up it can be the larger half of the bill.
Stall#
One dedicated charging space, which is how capacity is counted here: 21,797 stalls across the directory. A stall is never the same thing as an outlet, and the two are not added together.
Outlet#
A socket you plug your own cable into — a NEMA 14-50 or TT-30 at a campground, for instance. 2,034 outlets in this directory are counted separately from stalls because they are not a dedicated charger.
Range, cost and V2X
How efficiency, test cycles and vehicle-to-load are described on the vehicle pages.
Miles per kWh#
How far a car travels on one kilowatt-hour. The Tesla Model 3 returns 4.4 miles per kWh in this directory's figures, and 3.5 is a fair figure for a mixed fleet.
Cost per mile#
The price of a kilowatt-hour divided by the miles the car returns from it. At the directory's median tariff and 3.5 miles per kWh, a mile costs about $0.10.
EPA range#
The US label range, and the figure on this site's model pages. The longest here is the Lucid Air at 512 miles.
WLTP#
The European efficiency and range test. It is not the EPA figure and usually reads more optimistic on the same car; 82 models here carry both, which is why a European number and a US number for one model do not match.
V2L#
Vehicle-to-load: using the car's battery to run tools or appliances through an outlet. 17 models here list an AC output, from about 2 kW to 11 kW.
V2H#
Vehicle-to-home: using the car as a house battery or backup supply. The catalogue marks 3 models here ready for it, which records what the car can do — the house still needs the equipment.
V2G#
Vehicle-to-grid: exporting power from the car back to the grid. The catalogue uses one flag for it and for V2H, so the count is the same and means vehicle readiness, not a utility agreement.
How these definitions are counted
- If a figure is in a definition, it is a count from the same build-time data as the directory, the connector hubs and the model pages — not an estimate and not a market total.
- A station can list more than one connector and a car can have two inlets, so connector counts overlap. Nothing here adds them into a single total.
- Stalls and outlets are separate counts on purpose. A campground pedestal with a NEMA 14-50 socket is an outlet, not a stall, and the two numbers are never summed.
- Where a term means something different outside the US — CCS2 and Type 2 are the European charge shapes, and a WLTP figure is not an EPA one — the definition says which one this site means.
A term that is missing can be asked for on the contact page, and the methodology page explains where the numbers behind these definitions come from.