Let’s have a look at the charging inlet on the Renault Twingo – and there’s a surprise by opening the flat that usually would hide the fuel filler: You would have expected a Type 2 inlet, wouldn’t you? Instead, we can see a male CEE16/3 plug. Very surprising to me. As the Renault Twingo was equipped with a Molten-Salt temperature battery which had to be kept at an operating temperature of about 300 degrees celsius, the car would have been mostly plugged into one of these camping plug outlets at a home or at a workplace when standing still. It wouldn’t draw a lot of energy, but it needed to keep those batteries warm.
If we are going ahead in installing a different battery system, we want to have at least Type 2 charging (if not Chademo or CCS). So this will be something that will be changed. I might be choosing a two-step-approach: First Type 2 limited to about 3.7 kW with the existing charger, in a second step maybe DC charging ability. This means that we need to keep this in mind when selecting the BMS for the new battery system. Of the two shortlisted BMS systems, only one actually supports DC charging! More on that to follow.
