Off Topic » Ultra fast electric vehicle chargers

In my newspaper today was a long article written by David Stringer and published by Bloomberg News. It discusses very powerful chargers that are now being introduced to the world market. One company making them is Tritium, located in Brisbane, Australia. They are said to be making among the most advanced car chargers available, promising to deliver a full charge to an EV car battery in just minutes.

The article says that thousands of these charging stations are being installed along highways from Shanghai to Germany to California, with the capacity to charge up to 20 miles of driving range in just one minute. Unfortunately, EVs can not take full advantage of these new charger systems right now and it will be later this year before they start arriving in the EV market.

Another manufacturer of these extreme chargers is Innogy's BTCPower, which has plants in California and the Philippines. Tritium offers charging stations that will add more than 215 miles of range in just 10 minutes. Ionity is building about 400 stations, with as many as six ultra fast chargers each, on European highways.

Electrify America, a VW unit created under a settlement due to their emissions scandal, is spending $2 billion on refueling stations around the U.S. over the next decade. Their first ultra fast charger was installed in Chicopee, Massachusetts last May.

"The speed at which current EVs can recharge is limited by such factors as the size of their batteries, the voltage the pack can accept and the charger's current." The article says it may be years before new electric vehicles can handle the power of these new chargers. Only Porsche's Taycan sports car, to be introduced later this year, will be able to take full advantage of the these ultra chargers. The roll out of the new chargers are considered to be part of a 10 year plan.

"By the end of 2018 there were more than 630,000 public charging stations installed globally, most of which are located in China. By 2030, there may be demand for more than 20 million public EV charging pumps, the International Energy Agency forecasts." According to the article.

How about Shell gasoline-powered battery generators? That is the sort of thing that Shell would likely do in the U.S.

A couple of times I have gone to a (Chevron) gas station and asked if I could plug my 1300 watt charger into one of their outdoor 120V outlets, only to be told to get lost. Even asking if they would accept payment for the use of an outlet, I was told by the attendant that they couldn't allow that. I get the same response when I visit a state park, BTW. No charging allowed.

Same thing at Alice's Restaurant in the Santa Cruz Mountains, just above Silicon Valley. No electric motorcycle charging allowed. But they have a good reason for that prohibition. A few years ago a group of electric motorcycle riders plugged into their 240V outlet with some powerful chargers and blew up their old 100 amp service, putting their gas station of of action for a couple of days. They were not happy about that.

Zitat von wessie im Beitrag #2

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All very good but unless you have adequate distribution infrastructure they will not work.

Already, in the UK, service stations on motorways are throttling the existing chargers at peak times. A friend who works for Shell, overseeing multiple retail franchises, states that many people drive from London, heading for Cornwall or Devon during our holiday season. They arrive at a service station on the M5 near Bristol, hoping to charge their car whilst having lunch and find they are in a queue as demand exceeds supply.

Shell has just taken over one of our larger domestic electricity suppliers so they are evidently interested in this market. I am sure they will come up with a solution, at a cost. Micro-nuclear reactors maybe?

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Zitat von Richard230 im Beitrag #3

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How about Shell gasoline-powered battery generators? That is the sort of thing that Shell would likely do in the U.S.

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