Avcon

Avcon is a company that manufactures battery electric vehicle (EV) charging interfaces. [ [http://avconev.com/ Avcon Corporation ] ] {Avcon: for the company, AVCON for the EV charging head}

The AVCON conductive interface was used by the Ford Ranger Truck EV and the Honda EV-plus. The AVCON conductive EV charging system consists of a charging head (the male handle) which plugs into a AVCON inlet (the female receptacle) mounted on the vehicle.

The AVCON conductive interface was the primary competitor to the Magne Charge inductive charging paddle used by the General Motors' Saturn EV1 and Chevy S10 EV, plus Toyota's RAV4 EV. Ford and Honda chose AVCON as a more cost effective EV charging solution to transfer the same 6KW AC power to the EV's on board charging system (208 to 240 VAC, 40 amp circuit into the charging head).

Many Air Resources Board funded public EV charging installations (money came from DMV fees) had to have both an inductive and a conductive AVCON charging head. This meant twice as much money was spent because the simple, cost-effective AVCON was not adopted by all Automakers. These public EV charging installations did not use Avcon model charging heads; they used the more expensive EVII ICS-200 model AVCON charging heads.

Automakers abandoned their promise to CARB to produce production EVs for public purchase by using a CARB mandate loophole (selling slow neighborhood EVs or carts to obtain their CARB credits), very few production EVs were actually sold to the public (either inductive or conductive).

AVCON was ultimately endorsed by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) over Magne Charge, which caused GM to retire inductive paddle technology. [ [http://ev1-club.power.net/archive/020315/index.htm "GM Pulls the Plug on Inductive Charging: Letter from General Motors Advanced Technology Vehicles."] (Website). EV1 Club. (Letter dated) 2002-03-15. Retrieved on 2007-08-23.]

Since conductive EV charging AVCONs can be used by all EVs, and inductive EV charging can not, some RAV4 EV drivers have taken to bringing their SPI TAL inductive charger with them with an AVCON adapter box (provides a 14-50 outlet). This allows RAV4 EVs with an inductive charging system to recharge from public conductive AVCON EV charging heads.

Soon with no production EVs available, EV charging station hosts (the companies giving the free electric power: Costco, shopping malls, -more-) withdrew they support for the cost of repairs of their public EV charging stations. The EAA ( 501.3c nonprofit eaaev.org ) members have stepped up by having EV charging funds the public can donate to so these EV charging stations can be repaired after vandals damage them. This keeps the EVs on the road by extending their range for very little electricity cost to the host.

Currently, any public or private AVCON charging head installations are mainly using Avcon models as they are much more cost effective than the now unavailable EVII AVCON models. New EV conversion owners are choosing to install Avcon powerpak EV charging heads at their home, and Avcon inlets in their conversion EVs.

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