Magne Charge


Magne Charge is a largely obsolete inductive charging system, also known as J1773, used to charge battery electric vehicles formerly made by General Motors, for vehicles such as the EV1, Chevy S10 EV, and other :Category:Electric vehicles|electric vehicles. It was produced by the General Motors subsidiary Delco Electronics. It is still used by a few hundred first generation Toyota RAV4 EV electric vehicles. As these first generation Toyota RAV4 EV electric vehicles retire from the roadways, Magne Charge will be completely obsolete since no existing or future electric vehicles can use it. The 2012 Gen 2 RAV4 EV, as well as the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt, use J1772 instead of the obsolete Magne Charge.
Level 2 most common was the 6.6 kW version. Level 3 higher power 50 kW fast charge versions were demonstrated.
This charger was unique in that its charge port used an inductive charge paddle, of which there were two sizes, a small and large paddle.
The system was designed to be safe even when used in the rain, and was demonstrated in operation fully submerged in water. These are often referred on electric vehicle charging station maps as SPI and LPI stations for Small Paddle Inductive and Large Paddle Inductive stations.
Magne Charge support was withdrawn by General Motors in 2002,
after the California Air Resources Board settled on a conductive charging interface for electric vehicles in California in June, 2001.
It has also been referred to as Magne-Charge and MagneCharge.
In 2011 the California Energy Commission created the Reconnect CA Program, a grant program to upgrade and expand existing publicly available EV charging infrastructure to the new SAE J1772 charging standard.
In the movie Gattaca, Vincent is shown plugging a Magne Charge paddle into his electric car at 41 minutes into the movie.