Electric vehicles should be the most straightforward things, on the basis that we spend half our lives plugging stuff in. Phones, vacuums, household appliances, we’re no strangers to sticking cables ...

In a nutshell, plugs and sockets differ from region to region and even country to country because, at the time they were being developed, no one really saw any reason to make them all the same. First, ...

When the first few thousand electric cars went on sale in California in the mid- to late 1990s, they used various different charging methods, each with its own dedicated charging stations. Given the ...

South Africa is undergoing a decades-long transition to a new electrical plug and socket standard, which will culminate in the old triangular three-prong plug top no longer being supported. In its ...

It is the bane of worldwide travel: there isn’t just one way to get AC power from the wall. The exact connector — and what you can expect when you plug in — differs from country to country. Even if ...

Confusion in the electrical sector has led to claims that all Schuko plugs and sockets are banned. This is not true.

We have a severe lack of electrical outlets in the kitchen at work and the toaster oven and blender are sharing an outlet. If you want to use one, you just unplug the other and plug it in. This ...

Two new standards that extend South Africa’s plug and socket specification are being added to the country’s wiring code. Gianfranco Campetti, the chair of the SC23B mirror committee at the South ...