Before long you can unfold a pantograph when you drive under a pylon, make contact for 5 seconds and fill up your battery.

Having a rod on the roof to catch lightning comes after that.

 

Having a rod on the roof to catch lightning comes after that.

…had a flashback of some guy in a DeLorean trying to hit 88 mph 😅

 

That link doesn't seem to have many details on how It's possible to charge that fast, the CCS2 cables already have to be liquid cooled on the higher power chargers to make them a manageable size.
is it some other kind of connector?

The battery being able to handle it is just one part, you still need to get the energy to the battery.

 

It will be using the Chinese GB/T standard which has recently been revised from 250A to 800A maximum.

CCS2 is still 500A (Tesla ignore this) so you won't find anything over about 450kW (900V x 500A) for a while yet.

 

One advantage of 800-900v charging is the reduction in amps for the same power transferred. The result is less heat (energy) lost in the cable so less cooling or thinner cables than 400v systems.
This is also why ac power transmission is done at very high voltage not 240v.

 

Lucid did this a few years ago 😅

Lucid Motors

lucidmotors.com

 

This is impressive, I wasn't aware that they have done it already.

 

Presumably that’s 255 miles on CLTC, so perhaps 4-4.5mi/kWh? It looks to be a big heavy car (5.3m long) so is unlikely to be super-efficient.

Which means 55-65kWh being added in 5 mins i.e. around 700kW, roughly matching the 925Vx765A quoted.

If it has a 175kWh battery and average of 4C the charging speed is feasible. And would give bonkers max range.

 

Good… every time I fill up the ampera I think to myself ‘yeah, I’d probably soon get bored of sitting on a rapid’… anything that makes charging faster is a good thing.

 

Is the publicity shot next to a private jet so we can get an idea of the size of the thing (massive). Or are they giving a hint at the price?

 

Forget "charging efficiency" or anything like that ... reducing CO2 emissions is a long-forgotten "mission objective" now everyone is mind-locked into being spoon-fed BEVs "or else".

 

Making money is always the objective of the firms involved. Whether with ICE or BEV or any other tech. And that is done by delivering features people want at a price they can afford. No-one sensible thought that had suddenly changed, surely?

Presumably people who use private jets both want and can afford this sort of convenience and luxury. Which is their choice, in a free market.

But I agree that governments offering incentives to “any BEV” will probably want to rethink that and focus on efficiency too, as otherwise you end up incentivising 150kWh+ behemoths like Hummer EV.

If they’ve achieved 5 min refill times by simply putting a huge battery in then that’s not clever and doesn’t deserve any kudos.

If they’ve achieved it by delivering class-leading drivetrain efficiency and aerodynamics, or through new battery tech, and are simply showcasing it in a halo luxury vehicle then that could be tech that can be applied to smaller vehicles as the price comes down, and might well be something to celebrate.

 

Making money is always the objective of the firms involved. Whether with ICE or BEV or any other tech. And that is done by delivering features people want at a price they can afford. No-one sensible thought that had suddenly changed, surely?

But it has suddenly changed.

When laws come in dictating what you can and can't buy, that's a sudden change which may mean people forego 'something', even if they want it at a price they can afford.

But I agree that governments offering incentives to “any BEV” will probably want to rethink that and focus on efficiency too, as otherwise you end up incentivising 150kWh+ behemoths like Hummer EV.

Yep, that is what my comment is about; the creation of perverse incentives.

The fact that a 200kW charger can lose over 20kW just in charging, which is more power than is needed to even drive a car along at 70mph so you're basically adding an extra car to the roads when you charge at that power, that's a lot of waste, but if the delivery company can get 4 times as many cars through than at 50kW and add in the losses to the customer's bill, then there is the perverse incentive.

It needs to be corrected, by legal mandate, that there is a sliding scale of unit prices when charging at higher rates.

Like you say, and I recognise, it's not illegitimate to get the basics in place first before refining the detail. That is a fair argument. It is also right that any fanfare on super high charge rates is given due caveats of the environmental impact of it.

 

But it has suddenly changed.

When laws come in dictating what you can and can't buy, that's a sudden change which may mean people forego 'something', even if they want it at a price they can afford.




Yep, that is what my comment is about; the creation of perverse incentives.

The fact that a 200kW charger can lose over 20kW just in charging, which is more power than is needed to even drive a car along at 70mph so you're basically adding an extra car to the roads when you charge at that power, that's a lot of waste, but if the delivery company can get 4 times as many cars through than at 50kW and add in the losses to the customer's bill, then there is the perverse incentive.

It needs to be corrected, by legal mandate, that there is a sliding scale of unit prices when charging at higher rates.

Like you say, and I recognise, it's not illegitimate to get the basics in place first before refining the detail. That is a fair argument. It is also right that any fanfare on super high charge rates is given due caveats of the environmental impact of it.

Can you explain this? It's true a 200 kW charger can lose 20 kW in power. But let's say the average car fills up 50 kWh at that rate. That's 20 kW / 4 = 5 kWh.
If that same car charges for 30 minutes at a 100 kW charger, which will roughly also lose 10%, it loses exactly the same amount of energy.

As long as efficiency doesn't decrease while power goes up, I see no problem. Assuming in the future all cars allow e.g. 200 kW, you can serve 4 cars per hour on a 200 kW charger. For the same number of cars you'd need 2 100 kW chargers. Less chargers needed = more efficient use of resources.

I fully agree though that this should not go on forever. The EV transition means a paradigm shift and should not be focused on emulating the ICE experience.

I'm sure there's an optimum in charge speed somewhere. I just don't know where it is. It very much depends on where battery technology is going. If we could charge at 2.5C until 95% of the battery, that sounds like a good enough scenario for most people.

 

It annoys me that MSM are so obsessed with charging times. They’re trying to replicate an ICEV experience with BEVs. I couldn’t go back to making a special errand to refuel. Refuelling should happen while you do something else, eg while you sleep, or while you have a pee and buy a coffee on a long trip. My 400V BEV took 11 mins to add enough electric when I was at Exeter services last August. There is no need to charge any quicker than that.

 

I would agree with most of that. The exception being for EV owners who can't charge at home. They have a problem that would prevent me from owning a BEV in the first place, so kudos to them as they cope, and also have to pay more cash for all of their miles.

Not sure how to equalise the price disadvantage for them, but for sure a much faster charge experience would be very welcome. I only use Rapids on road trips and always use that time to carry out other needs. In some ways, a faster charge would be unwelcome and put me under pressure to get back to the car before I was ready. So perhaps a variety of powered Rapids from 50 kW to 350 kW would work. Then again there would always be idiots who can only take, say 70kW, but would plug into a 350 kW unit and block that for others who can take a much higher charge rate.

Overall new tech that improves the charge experience in public is welcome as long as both improvements in cars and Rapids keep pace with each other. There would be nothing more frustrating than one or the other limiting a fast exchange of power.

 

I also don’t understand why people want to charge so quickly. My other hobby is RC car racing and when I started I used to have two battery packs so I didn’t have to wait. However I soon learned that one pack was good enough as I could charge it at 3C and I had 24 minutes between rounds and it was only taking 12min to charge back up from 50% to 100%. Recently I built a discharger to complement the charger and 24mins is just enough to discharge at 5C from 50% to 5% then back up to 100% at 3.5C to warm up the pack get lower IR (internal resistance) and faster lap times.

What does this have to do with EV’s you ask, well as long as you have high charging speeds of 3C it’s probably already faster than you need. If you want 5min or 12C charging you must really be in a rush! 😅

 

I also don’t understand why people want to charge so quickly.

For people who drive EV's this is not an issue. The value of this information is to battle the constant FUD regarding BEV's.
I recently had a discussion with a "petrol head" telling me how he can fill up for less than 5 minutes and drive 5/600 miles after that. I've asked him when was the last time he drove 500 miles without stopping.....he couldn't answer 😂😂😂

 

My Kia E-Niro is not particularly fast charging, but to be honest I've never found it to be an issue, like you say I'm probably doing something else while it sits on the charger. I waited 10 mins extra once on a five hour journey, no big deal.

 

I kind of get it.

If XYZ has no facility for home charging, and just drives like a normal ICEV car then stops to recharge expecting (without behaviour change) an equivalent time to fuel up with petrol / diesel. Then comparable 5 mins to fill up makes sense.

Although it won’t chime with lots of folks on here that have adapted and crucially can home change overnight etc.

 

Can you explain this? It's true a 200 kW charger can lose 20 kW in power. But let's say the average car fills up 50 kWh at that rate. That's 20 kW / 4 = 5 kWh.
If that same car charges for 30 minutes at a 100 kW charger, which will roughly also lose 10%, it loses exactly the same amount of energy.

As long as efficiency doesn't decrease while power goes up, I see no problem. Assuming in the future all cars allow e.g. 200 kW, you can serve 4 cars per hour on a 200 kW charger. For the same number of cars you'd need 2 100 kW chargers. Less chargers needed = more efficient use of resources.

I fully agree though that this should not go on forever. The EV transition means a paradigm shift and should not be focused on emulating the ICE experience.

I'm sure there's an optimum in charge speed somewhere. I just don't know where it is. It very much depends on where battery technology is going. If we could charge at 2.5C until 95% of the battery, that sounds like a good enough scenario for most people.

No

20kW losses at 200kW means (obviously) 10% losses, not 50% or 100%

If your EV was using 200kW avg when driving then yes that 10% loss would be enough to power another "normal" EV.

But that wouldn't be the fault of the charging speed, but rather of the quote ridiculous inefficiency of any vehicle using a consistent 200kW to power the motors.

(Another way to look at it is that the inefficiency of charging only applies to the small proportion of time when you are charging - perhaps 15 mins every 2-2.5hrs, ie around 10-12% of the journey time.)

Sorry, no idea what you guys are saying.

P=R.I^2.

Double the current, resistive losses increase by x4. The losses are not just thermal losses, though, there are magnetic losses in the ferrites and other more complex losses in other reactive characteristics of the switching circuits which are not a function of I^2 (some are a function of voltage).

Together, these are actually less than just resistive losses, so going from 50kW to 200kW probably triples the losses (not x16 as a pure I^2 relation might wrongly suggest).

But the difference in losses between 50kW and 200kW as a fraction of the whole is a non-zero increase.

For semi-conductor technology, electrical losses from voltage increases are more subtle, so doubling the voltage does not necessarily imply doubling the losses, in fact it doesn't. But it is a non-zero increase.

I am talking about losses in the power electronics driving the charging current.

There is a FURTHER loss in the battery itself. So a 200kW charge could be 40kW thermal losses taking the battery into account to (90% charger efficiency and ~90%, low 90's, battery charging efficiency).

At 50kW it'd be more like >95% for charger power electronics and ~95% for the battery.

 

Sorry, no idea what you guys are saying.

P=R.I^2.

Double the current, resistive losses increase by x4. The losses are not just thermal losses, though, there are magnetic losses in the ferrites and other more complex losses in other reactive characteristics of the switching circuits which are not a function of I^2 (some are a function of voltage).

Together, these are actually less than just resistive losses, so going from 50kW to 200kW probably triples the losses (not x16 as a pure I^2 relation might wrongly suggest).

But the difference in losses between 50kW and 200kW as a fraction of the whole is a non-zero increase.

For semi-conductor technology, electrical losses from voltage increases are more subtle, so doubling the voltage does not necessarily imply doubling the losses, in fact it doesn't. But it is a non-zero increase.

I am talking about losses in the power electronics driving the charging current.

There is a FURTHER loss in the battery itself. So a 200kW charge could be 40kW thermal losses taking the battery into account to (90% charger efficiency and ~90%, low 90's, battery charging efficiency).

At 50kW it'd be more like >95% for charger power electronics and ~95% for the battery.

Sure, but a 250 kW charger at 800v will have probably less losses than a 150 kW charger at 400v. And as I said: higher charging speeds require less overall chargers to be available, so there must be an optimum where you trade of between higher charging losses and less required infrastructure.

And as always: we seem to worry about every percent of energy we lose when talking about BEVs, yet somehow we take for granted that well to wheel in an ICE is somewhere around 25% at best.

Just so it's clear: I am also not in favour of the race to keep decreasing charging times. 5 minutes is absurd IMO because of all the infrastucture it requires, just so some road warriors can drive their EV like they (think) they drove their ICE. But we shouldn't just look at losses to make choices about our charging infrastructure. I like the idea of a price increment for ultra-rapids and you can actually see that that is what's happening. It'll probably sort itself out with that mechanism.

 

Have dogs that need a walk and pee. That helps massively with a charging strategy.

 

Not sure I follow. Are you saying there is always a charger wherever you can walk a dog? Whether we need that number of chargers, but no where near that and never will be.

 

Agree to both. Doubling voltage for the same power is precisely why voltages have incremented, but like for like, more current is always going to add to losses. It's those darned 'laws of thermodynamics' not following those 'alternative realities' that some political advocates create from their imaginations, and then demand.

{SiC transistors can be reasonably built [now] to 1700V, which is an increment on the previous generations of IGBTs (firstly, 600V, giving us 400V architecture, then 1200V for 800/900V architecture, so it stands to reason we'll see 1200V from 1700V SiC in due course). In the distant future, I predict transistors will have advanced to using 'diamond' as the semiconductor, it has a massive band gap and huge potential if we can deduce how to fabricate them. That'd give us 2500V switching for, say, 1800V systems. Doubling the voltage again. I think that is about the practical limit of materials 'in this universe'.}

It would be good to be able to find charging opportunities like petrol stations .. just drive and stop when you need one.

That is partly what an excess of range is about having.

As for 'do you not stop for 600 miles' the answer is 'no'; I do not stop in my van for 600 miles ... for refilling ... I think it is a misplaced question, we need to think not about how far one singular trip that a battery can take us, but how far between recharging opportunities, which is a different question, especially as the penetration into the market of people without any form of driveway or 'owned' charge point.

 

In the distant future, I predict transistors will have advanced to using 'diamond' as the semiconductor, it has a massive band gap and huge potential if we can deduce how to fabricate them. That'd give us 2500V switching for, say, 1800V systems. Doubling the voltage again. I think that is about the practical limit of materials 'in this universe'.}

Distant future, starting yesterday.

https://www.livescience.com/technology/electronics/new-diamond-transistor-is-a-world-1st-paving-the-way-for-high-speed-computing-at-the-highest-temperatures

 

There are more charging points on route than there are MSAs. If MSAs are supposed to be provided with enough regularity on the network to allow people to stop for rest or wee… really not convinced charging provision is the problem any longer.

 

But no one gives one. We have multiple objectives when we stop. Kids need a pee, ok May as well charge and get a coffee. Car needs a charge OK we must have driven 2-3 hours already, probably smart to stop anyway…

 

I believe Donald's point which he's not really explaining, is that not every place where you stop for a break has charging. This was certainly true the last trip I was on where I stopped for a break (passenger's request; I could have continued!) at Thrapston services off the A14 which have no chargers.

I think it's naïve to ignore the inconvenience of not just being able to look out for the next sign saying "services". It's something we have all priced into EV ownership as worth it, but it doesn't mean it's irrelevant.

 

Nio... have they just obsoleted their battery swapping? That's absurd too, as is 5 minute charging. The shortest stop I've ever done was 7 minutes, walking to the loo and back. I only added 7kwh, which was enough to reach the next charger comfortably, where I had lunch.

I did 500 miles on Tuesday, stopping 5 times. The car only needed 4, or perhaps only 3 stops, but I needed to stop more often, so I plugged in anyway. My Smart #1 isn't particularly efficient, and setting the cruise to 73mph didn't help - but it still didn't add any time to the trip. Getting and consuming food and coffee and using the loo can't be done in 5 minutes.

 

…had a flashback of some guy in a DeLorean trying to hit 88 mph 😅

Your homework for the weekend: find out how much road you need to reach 88 MPH with the Taycan. Not leaving my phone number as you can't tell the UK cops I asked you to go that fast on UK roads.

I would agree with most of that. The exception being for EV owners who can't charge at home. They have a problem that would prevent me from owning a BEV in the first place, so kudos to them as they cope, and also have to pay more cash for all of their miles.

Not sure how to equalise the price disadvantage for them, but for sure a much faster charge experience would be very welcome. I only use Rapids on road trips and always use that time to carry out other needs. In some ways, a faster charge would be unwelcome and put me under pressure to get back to the car before I was ready. So perhaps a variety of powered Rapids from 50 kW to 350 kW would work. Then again there would always be idiots who can only take, say 70kW, but would plug into a 350 kW unit and block that for others who can take a much higher charge rate.

Overall new tech that improves the charge experience in public is welcome as long as both improvements in cars and Rapids keep pace with each other. There would be nothing more frustrating than one or the other limiting a fast exchange of power.

I hope there will be a range of charging speeds and prices for public charging. I do regular long day trips (people here seem to think a couple can't share 10 hours of driving in a day between them) and am quite happy to pay a high price for those, but most of the time I can charge the car on night rate. I want people who can't charge at home to find BEVs affordable. I'm happy for those who need fast charge on the road to pay significantly more for the advantage.

I'd be happy to pay twice as much as petrol for similar "refill" rate on electricity (might have to argue that one with the wife). Having to wait in line and then charge at 50-100 kW on a long trip though, that may change a single day trip to two days. It could be fine for some, but expecting everyone will be happy with that is weird.

 

Your homework for the weekend: find out how much road you need to reach 88 MPH with the Taycan.

Google: Roughly 200 metres in a Turbo, about 180 metres in a Turbo S. Give or fake. As if I’d admit to that on public roads 🤔😎🤣

 

Whereas a Delorean would have taken 18+ seconds and 500m to get to 88mph.

The Taycan has the additional advantages of having doors that don't close on you from gravity, not overheating in warm weather, and being able to turn.

Doc would have loved it.

 

Doc's Delorean was electric*, so the published figures for the original fossil one don't apply.

*or so he said in response to Marty asking if this sucker was nuclear, but you can clearly hear the engine idling...but then you can also hear a fossil engine running when Tony Stark pulled up in an Audi e-tron. It's almost like films are fictional!

 

CCS2 is still 500A (Tesla ignore this)

Tesla made use of the CCS2 extension system to pass data from many temperature probes on the cables, plugs, sockets, etc so they can safely go over the continuous power ratings until something gets hots. In real life there is nearly always enough time between max power delivery and max power delivery is short enough that over temperature "errors" don't often reduce the rate they can charge.

For people who drive EV's this is not an issue. The value of this information is to battle the constant FUD regarding BEV's.

In many cities taxi/uber drivers mostly don't have home charging, and also a significant number of people without home chargers don't drive to a supermarket to shop. So there will be people for whom charging speed is important.

If I navigate between pee stops and coffee shops, what are the chances that I bump into an available charger?

With the ever expanding Intervolt network, the chance of a random coffee stop having rapid chargers is quickly increasing. With increased range, there is also no need to charge at every coffee stop.

So I do think trying to have similar charging to how you fill ICE is important as that is how many want to charge. There is still a huge amount of people who do a "big shop" and fill the car on Friday evening or Saturday morning. For these people the whole owning an EV makes little sense.

Rapid chargers at supermarkets that can charge a car while shopping solve this issue.

The problem with this approach is that you're only thinking of yourself, not the person waiting in the queue for you to finish your charge or for the charging network that needs to buy more chargers to manage the queue length.

As so much of the cost is the grid connection and transformer etc, along with AC/DC converters that power sharging chargers can automacily allocate, unless a site is truly space limited I questioin if it saves the site much capical cost by having all drivers only charging at the max rate a charger can give.

 

Rapid chargers at supermarkets that can charge a car while shopping solve this issue.

Yes you can. My point was it's less convenient and more expensive to do so at present Vs petrol. So there is little incentive.

 

Following the discussion here about time to charge on the road.... We had to do 250 miles ish, round trip with my wife EQA. On the way back we went down to about 10% so there was no way to make it home. Stopped at the new 100 kW PodPoint in Duloch Park (Dunfermline) to top up. By the time I went for a quick comfort break the car had more than enough to take us home for the remaining 40 miles. In 12 minutes the car had taken 18.2 kW giving us around another 65 miles on the top of the GOM prediction of 32 miles left before the charge.
Even if I was driving ICE car, with the need of a break it wouldn't had made any difference on travel time.

 

Where is the fun in that! 40 miles to go, 32 on the GOM I would have been accepting the challenge of getting home without charging! 😁

Also on one leg of 250 mile round trip and being 40 miles from home, so you had only travelled 85 miles before needing to stop?

 

Give it another year and you will be able to charge faster an EV than fill up an ICE car

I already can - it takes me no more than 30 seconds to charge.
Get out of the car, flip open the flap, grab the lead from the holster on the wall, stuff it in the socket, lock the car, close the front door behind me. It is always fully charged when I get up in the morning.

 

People look genuinely perplexed when they ask some variation of the “I heard it takes ages to charge those electric cars”. I always answer that it only takes a few seconds, plug it in at night and unplug it again in the morning.