EV Charging Robot: ABB Arms That Plug In Your Car

Plugging in an electric car takes ten seconds, so why would anyone build an EV charging robot? Because in robotaxi depots, mining pits, bus routes and some home garages there is either nobody around to do it or the cable is too heavy to handle comfortably. This post follows the job from the filling station attendant to the first automatic connectors. Then it looks at the robots being tested this year, the place where ABB robots already plug in vehicles and where they could, and what still has to be solved before an arm charges the car in your own garage.

A row of fast chargers for electric cars in Stuttgart. Photo: Alexander Migl / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

From pump attendants to the first automatic connectors

For most of the last century somebody else fuelled your car. Gulf Refining opened what is usually called the first drive-in filling station in Pittsburgh in December 1913, with attendants working the pumps under a pagoda-style roof. The attendant pumped the fuel, took the money and often checked the oil and tyres while he was at it. In 1947 Frank Urich opened a self-service station in Los Angeles with the slogan "Save 5 cents, serve yourself", and over the following decades drivers got used to holding the nozzle themselves.

Gas station attendants in Portland, Oregon, behind an out of gas sign during the 1973 fuel crisis. Photo: David Falconer, U.S. National Archives via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Electric cars kept the job in the driver's hands, at home or at a public post. A Level 2 cable is light. Fast DC cables are thick and stiff because they carry several hundred kilowatts, and some are liquid cooled. For a wheelchair user, an older driver or a depot worker who plugs in dozens of cars per shift, that cable is a real obstacle. So engineers kept coming back to the idea of a machine that finds the charge port and plugs in by itself.

A Mobil self-service station around 1975, with drivers filling their own cars. Photo: Moxmarco / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Buses got there first. In 2013 ABB showed the TOSA bus in Geneva: a laser-guided arm on the roof connects to a receptacle at the stop and tops up the battery with a 400 kW boost in about 15 seconds while passengers get on and off. Cars followed with prototypes. Tesla demonstrated its snake-like charger arm in August 2015 and never sold it. In December 2020 Volkswagen Group Components showed a mobile charging robot that drives through a car park towing a battery wagon and plugs it into the parked car.

A TOSA flash-charging bus at Geneva Airport in 2013, the year ABB showed the system. Photo: Hoff1980 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Robots that plug in cars today, and where ABB fits

This year the idea is getting serious testing. In April Rocsys launched its M1, an overhead rail system with a robot arm that serves up to ten robotaxi bays, with wider rollout planned for 2027. In June Xiaomi showed a wall-mounted home arm that uses a camera to find the port. In August the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing included an EV charging contest, and Business Standard reported humanoids being tried out on plugging in connectors at Zeekr and Lynk & Co sites. Some of the hype falls apart on inspection. On 29 September EVWORLD picked apart a viral Nanning concept of cute mobile charger robots, calling it AI imagery that hides a heavy battery problem.

The roof arm of an ABB TOSA bus reaching up to the charging point at a stop in Davos. Photo: ABB

ABB already builds one of these machines, for a much bigger vehicle. Its eMine Robot Automated Connection Device is a robot arm with a vision system that plugs a charging connector into an electric mining truck. ABB develops it with Boliden, BHP and Komatsu, showed it for the first time at MINExpo 2024 in Las Vegas, and planned field tests at Boliden's Aitik mine. A haul truck connector is far too heavy for a person to handle all day, so this is where a robot pays for itself first. We covered another mining job in ABB's blast-hole charging robot.

ABB's eMine Robot Automated Connection Device, a robot arm that plugs in electric mining trucks, at MINExpo 2024. Photo: ABB

ABB does not sell a charging robot for cars, but its standard arms show how one could be built. A GoFa CRB 15000 cobot can hold a CCS plug. Its force and speed are limited and it stops when it touches something, which matters in a parking area where people walk past. A compact IRB 1300 could do the same job inside a fenced depot cell, with SafeMove watching the zones around it. The vision step and the insertion path would usually be tested first in RobotStudio. All of this is a possible design, and ABB has not announced such a product.

An ABB GoFa CRB 15000 cobot at a work table. Photo: ABB

What it will take to put a charging arm in every garage

Fleets will go hands-free first. Robotaxis have no driver to plug them in, and a depot with fifty bays pays staff to walk between cars all night, so the business case is easy to calculate. Buses, delivery vans and mining trucks are in the same position. Homes will come later. A household arm has to fit next to bikes and bins, cope with every car brand's port position, work in the dark and in winter, and cost less than most owners think the convenience is worth.

A BMW i3 charging from a wall box at a home in Costa Rica. Photo: Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz) / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Mobile robots are the other route. Instead of an arm at each space, a robot drives to the car, as in the Volkswagen prototype or the Nanning concept. Navigation is largely solved: ABB's Flexley Mover AMRs already find their way around factories with Visual SLAM. Energy is harder. A battery big enough to fill a car weighs hundreds of kilograms, and every extra transfer loses some energy, which is the core of EVWORLD's criticism.

The ABB Flexley Mover P604, which navigates with 3D Visual SLAM. Photo: ABB

Several problems are still open. Carmakers and charger makers have to settle how a robot and a car talk to each other, how the charge flap opens and who pays if an arm scratches a door. A robot in a family garage works near children and pets, so it needs stricter safety limits than an arm in a fenced cell. Cost is the biggest barrier, since a wall box costs a few hundred dollars and an arm with cameras costs far more. Until that gap closes, the EV charging robot will be a fleet tool first and a home gadget second.

ABB Terra AC wall boxes, the kind of charger an arm would have to work with at home. Photo: Jan Ainali / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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