Support

I have an OpenEVSE with of course a tethered cable, but occasionally, it would be convenient to have a longer cable and I'm not going to install a longer cable to the EVSE just for those few times.

However, a regular Type 2 charging cable has a male plug at one end and a female socket the other, so physically that has the requisite 'connectors' to act as an extension.

I am aware that the powers that be have tried to make this not work and I suspect that is done with the resistors inside the plugs that inform the car etc what is going on and simply extending a cable with another charging cable allows the endpoint devices to see this and refuse to work.

Some cable suppliers here in the UK state unequivocally that it must not be done, yet others offer a specific 'extension' cable that looks like a regular Type 2 with a male and a female, but can apparently only be used as an extension and not an actual full charging cable (from untethered EVSE to vehicle).

These 'extension' cables seem to be more expensive than 'charging' cables, but what really is the difference?

My guess would be that they are actually simply 'pass through' cables, with no resistors at all and hence simply extend the cable and the devices at each end are unaware it is not a single cable and so charging happily proceeds.

In which case, any charging cable could be converted to an extension cable simply by removing the internal resistors.

Or is there more to it than that?

Thanks for confirming that.

I don't think cable costs are reasonable though. £160 for an 'extension' cable (if you can find one) seems excessive. I bought my first car for less than that.

I'll probably end up getting a charging cable and modifying it (removing resistors) as I suspect that may indeed be cheaper than buying individual items.  I'll just see what's available.