Get the latest tech news

Dumb New Electrical Code Could Doom Most Common EV Charging

Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from MotorTrend: A coming ground-fault circuit-interrupter revision could make slow-charging your car nearly impossible. The National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) publishes a new National Electric Code every three years, and we almost never notice or...

But the next one, NFPA 70 2026, has the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) electric-vehicle charging subcommittee, OEMs, and companies in the EV Supply Equipment (EVSE, or charger) biz mightily concerned. That's because it proposes to require the same exact ground-fault circuit-interrupter protection that makes you push that little button on your bathroom outlet every time the curling iron won't heat up. This problematic application of 5 mA trip to most 240-volt equipment was added into this regulation late, during a second draft, and now the only way to head it off is for interested parties (SAE, OEMs, and EVSE manufacturers) to register their notice of motion in February for consideration in March.

Get the Android app