The car charger is a must-have charging equipment for almost every car, which provides fast charging for consumer electronics such as mobile phones, tablets, and headphones for drivers and passengers, and can also supply power to on-board devices such as dash cams, navigators, and walkie-talkies. Recently, the charging head network found that the latest PD3.1 standard in the field of fast charging of digital products has entered the on-board charger industry, and two PD3.1 on-board chargers have been distributed in major e-commerce.
Fast-charging car chargers have become standard, and the new generation of PD3.1 car chargers has begun to be distributed
Since the popularization of the USB-C interface, the USB PD fast charging standard has also been standard on most consumer electronic products, and the performance of the car charger has also followed the trend to fast charging.
According to the car charger ranking of Jingdong's e-commerce platform, nine of the top ten products are USB PD fast charging models, and the price range ranges from tens of yuan to 100 yuan. In terms of performance, the number of hot-selling car charger interfaces is mainly multi-port, and the output power is between 20W-100W, all of which belong to the PD3.0 fast charging standard, and the output power has reached the upper limit of the PD3.0 standard, that is, 20V5A 100W.
Does the on-board charger fast charging performance stop at 100W? Definitely.
When I was looking for the best-selling products, I found that the car charger that adopts the new generation PD3.1 fast charging standard has been quietly listed, and there are two more, they are Baseus 140W PD3.1 dual-port car charger and Philips PD3.1 165W three-port car charger, which breaks through the upper limit of 100 watts and provides stronger fast charging performance for USB-C devices.
Breaking through the bottleneck of USB-C 100W fast charging, PD3.1 supports up to 280W output
USB PD stands for USB Power Delivery, which is a widely used fast charging standard formulated by the USB Association (USB-IF), and is one of the most widely used and versatile fast charging standards. After years of updating, the USB PD standard has been released in several versions such as PD1.0, PD2.0, PD3.0, PD3.1, etc., and the most common is PD3.0.
PD3.0 has a maximum transmission power of 20V5A 100W, which has been widely used in consumer electronics, but in the face of today's digital products with faster and faster power climbing, PD3.0 with only 100W power is slightly insufficient. In response to increasing power demands, in 2021 the USB-IF Association introduced the PD3.1 standard specification, which increased the extended power range from 100W to 240W.
PD3.1 and PD3.0 are both based on the USB-C physical interface, and on the basis of the original PD3.0, three new voltage ranges of 28V, 36V, and 48V are added, and the maximum output current corresponding to the three voltages is 5A, and the output power reaches 140W, 180W, and 240W respectively.
On October 19, 2021, Apple released the Macbook Pro 2021 with M1 series processors, which is the world's first laptop with PD3.1 fast charging, which supports 28V5A 140W fast charging. Since then, PD3.1 fast charging technology has been adopted by the market one after another, especially the flagship ultra-high-power power power banks, many of which are equipped with PD3.1 fast charging as standard.
What is a cigarette lighter?
The cigarette lighter socket is a circular metal cylinder with a diameter of about 21mm and a depth of about 30cm, the outer edge of the shell is the negative pole, and the bottom center contact is the positive pole.
The modern automotive cigarette lighter standard was first created in 1956 and consists of a cigarette lighter socket, a cigarette lighter, and earlier an ashtray. Cigarette lighters were originally designed to light cigars (cigarettes), but now with the decrease in the number of smokers, most models have canceled the ashtray configuration, and even cigarette lighters are not gifted, only cigarette lighter sockets are provided, and the main function of cigarette lighters has become a standard interface for on-board power picking.
The voltage of the cigarette lighter socket is the same as the voltage of the car generator and battery, the voltage of the general family car is 12V-14V, and the voltage of the commercial cargo card is 24V-28V, and most of the car chargers support these two voltage systems.
Advantages of using PD3.1 fast charging in in-vehicle environments
As mentioned above, the most common PD3.0 power is capped at 100W, and if the device wants to get higher power, it can only rely on the power adapter with a dedicated interface. For example, for notebooks, high-power power adapters need to be connected to 100-220V AC power, and it is rare for cars to be equipped with AC inverter output modules in the cockpit.
In contrast, the cigarette lighter socket used in the PD3.1 car charger is a universal component, which is available in all cars, which is very convenient to provide high-power power supply capacity, and the power socket is universal, and the output USB-C port is also universal, and the power is larger than that of PD3.0.
Here is an example of a laptop, the model is a MacBook Pro 16 based on PD3.1 fast charging technology, which supports 28V5A voltage range, and the measured maximum charging power can reach 136W.
The full charging speed curve is shown in the figure, after using the PD3.1 140W charger, the MacBook Pro 16 charges to 56% in half an hour and 87% in one hour. If it is a PD3.0 charger, it only charges to 40% in half an hour and 78% in 1 hour, and the PD3.0 speed experience is still slightly lacking.
In addition to notebooks, high-performance high-capacity power banks are also widely supported by the PD3.1 fast charging standard, and the ANKER 737 power bank with a 24,000mAh battery capacity has been tested by the charging head network, and it can be charged to 73% in half an hour under PD3.1 fast charging, and it only takes 45 minutes to fully charge.
It can be seen that with the blessing of PD3.1 fast charging technology, large electronic devices can also enjoy extremely fast charging in the car, dispelling battery life anxiety.
Baseus 140W PD3.1 Dual Port Car Charger
Baseus 140W PD3.1 dual-port car charger is officially named "Zun Display Digital Display PD3.1 140W Car Charger", the model is CCZX-140, which belongs to Baseus Zun Display car charger series, the biggest feature of this series of products is that it has a digital display screen, which displays the battery voltage and device charging status in real time.
Baseus 140W PD3.1 dual-port car charger is made of metal + plastic material, the high-power output is more stable, the body is matte black color, the positive and negative contacts are gold-plated, the overall look is calm and atmospheric, and the input supports 12-24V voltage system. In addition to the charger, a 1m CtoC cable is included as standard in the package, and the built-in E-Marker chip supports up to 240W PD3.1 fast charging standard.
In terms of performance, the front output panel has two output ports, 1A1C, of which USB-C supports PD3.1 fast charging standard, with 5V3A / 9V3A / 12V3A / 15V3A / 20V5A / 28V5A voltage range, and up to 140W fast charging output. The USB-A port supports 5V3A / 9V3A / 10V2.25A / 12V2.5A voltage range, up to 30W output power. The dual ports can be used at the same time, and the power distribution strategy is 100W+30W, so that the two devices can enjoy fast charging without interfering with each other.
Inside the transparent panel directly in front of the car charger is a multi-functional digital display screen, which can take turns to display the five parameters of the car battery voltage value, USB-C output power, USB-C output voltage, USB-A output power, and USB-A output voltage, which is convenient for users to judge the health status of the battery and replace the battery in time, and the charging status of the two interface devices is also clear at a glance.
Philips 165W 3-port car charger
The Philips 165W 3-port car charger is DLP4308B/93, with a powerful 165W global output performance and three output ports to support more devices charging at the same time.
The fuselage is made of matte black technology, the front panel has a blue LED as a power-on indicator, and the car charger is made of plastic + metal, which can dissipate heat more quickly when used at high power. In terms of input, the Philips 165W three-port car charger supports a 12-24V input voltage system, which can be used by large and small cars.
性能方面,配备 2C1A 共三个输出接口,其中 USB-C 支持 PD3.1 快速充电标准,带有 5V3A / 9V3A / 12V3A / 15V3A / 20V5A / 28V5A 电压档,至高支持 140W 快充输出。 USB-C2 带有 5V3A / 9V3A / 12V3A / 15V3A / 20V3.5A 电压档,至高支持 70W 快充输出。 USB-A 带有 4.5V5A / 5V3A / 9V3A / 12V3A 电压档,至高支持 36W 快充输出。
In terms of multiple devices, the Philips 165W three-port car charger supports 100W+65W and 100W+5V3A power allocation strategies, which can charge up to three devices at the same time.
In order to facilitate your comparison, the parameters of the two PD3.1 car chargers are now made into a table.
Summary of the charging head network
The next-generation PD3.1 fast charging standard provides a higher upper limit for the fast charging industry, with an output capacity of up to 240W far exceeding the PD3.0 100W bottleneck, providing more powerful power supply capacity for consumer electronics and electrical equipment. PD3.1 fast charging products are gradually covering more fields from digital device accessories, and car chargers are one of them.
Based on the universal cigarette lighter socket and the universal USB-C interface, the PD3.1 car charger allows drivers and passengers to enjoy ultra-high-power fast charging in the car, and large electronic products can also replenish most of the power in tens of minutes, which was unimaginable before. At present, there are two PD3.1 car chargers available, both of which have a voltage range of 28V5A, which can provide faster charging speed for PD3.1 devices, and the PD3.1 car charger is also backward compatible with the PD3.0 standard, which is universal. If there are more PD3.1 car chargers in the future, the charging head network will continue to be updated.