Electric Car Fast Chargers Are Here, But The Batteries To Take Advantage Of Them Aren’t
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Range anxiety has often been a major element that keeps drivers from making the switch from a gasoline-powered car to an electric car. Yet, the fast chargers drivers need are here with companies installing them today. The battery technology needed to use them, however, is not.
The Detroit News reported Monday that ultra-fast chargers, the latest in electric car charging technology, are ready for use with deployment happening as you read this. They’re a far cry away from even DC fast chargers, which can juice batteries up to add 75 miles every 30 minutes. Instead, ultra-fast chargers offer the capability to add 215 miles in 10 minutes.
With the right onboard charging system and battery, juicing up an electric car will be quite similar to filling up a traditional car with a tank of gas.
Aside from Tesla’s own Supercharger system, the ultra-fast chargers will see few vehicles take advantage of them, with the first scheduled to arrive next year. The Porsche Taycan is a prime example, which will work with an 800-volt charger to juice the battery up to 80 percent in about 10 minutes.
Where does that leave General Motors? GM hasn’t made any substantial investments into charging infrastructure, despite the fact it was one of the first automakers to produce a mass-market plug-in hybrid in the Chevrolet Volt. The Bolt EV followed in 2016, which takes advantage of public charging infrastructure that other companies operate.
We’d imagine GM will work to make its future electric cars (the company has 20 new ones coming by 2023) compatible with ultra-fast chargers. Today, the quickest charger a GM electric car will work on is a DC fast charger, which is optional equipment for the Chevrolet Bolt EV. We know the automaker has invested millions into the Orion, Michigan, assembly plant for a new electric car, and we could see the model adopt some of the future technology to make range anxiety a thing of the past.
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Source: The Detroit News
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Fast charging is key. People will accept EV models better if they do not have to plan their lives around the charging. Few want to wait more than the 10 min it takes to fill a tank vs the 30 min to charge a battery partially. Also they need to get more locations to charge as in my area there are few to none.
The big key with fast charging is will it decrease the battery life? If it does not hurt the battery then it is a win!
As the owner of a 2019 Bolt and as a power production engineer at a utility company, I can tell you that fast chargers will not be here anytime soon. And by that I mean, they will not be here in a capacity to where people located in areas besides major cities can use them. Case in point, there are zero DC fast charger located in my entire state of North Dakota. The only chargers that are available are level 2 chargers that take 9.5 hours to fully charge my Bolt.
In addition, the charging rate and subsequent power required for these ultra-fast chargers will have a significant impact on the bulk electric power supply. Especially when the number of electric vehicles drastically increases, as most industry leaders project.
If America is serious about electric vehicles as the future of transportation, the government really needs to outline a plan, provide guidance to Utilities, and begin seriously investing in the necessary infrastructure.
I agree with what you’re saying, but I think the reality is you don’t need that many ultra-fast chargers. 90% of charging is done at home with people just doing the normal daily stuff. So really the worst case scenario is holiday driving. Many of the ultra-fast chargers also have battery storage so the electric supply doesn’t have to provide the maximum rate for charging – the batteries do. Then the batteries can be charged at a slower speed from the source. This type of setup works great when you have an ultra-fast charger in a low population density area with low electric supply capability and low usage.
You make valid points. ultra-fast chargers probably only need to be in major cities/towns across the hwy and interstate system, with slower fast charge stations sprinkled in between.
The major hurdle I see is when a majority of the population and long haul trucks convert to electric. The amount of energy consumed during the day becomes a serious issue, and would require very large energy storage to supply the customers energy needs. Either that or you resort to significantly increasing the electric generation fleet capacity with traditional fossil fired (or nuclear) generation. And what do we do during summer/winter peaks? Do we curtail charging stations as part of the mitigation plan? What about in winter when we fire up our natural gas peaking units, which limits the pipeline capacity for heating homes/businesses. Minnesota dealt with this first hand this winter when they had a winter peak and the wind farms had to be shut down because temperatures were below their -20F design limit. Some people went without gas to supply their homes because all natural gas fired generators were called on, and the utility had to put some customers up in hotels. Other utility customers were requested to adjust their thermostats to 50’s F.
These are just things that need to be thought through with a plan put in place on how to respond. I have no doubt it will happen eventually, but it would be nice if the government put forth a serious effort into putting together a plan now.
This is exactly what I was going to say, Matt. I couldn’t agree more. Also, the “ultra fast” DC Fast chargers should still support the existing cars, just throttling the amount of electricity to accommodate the car’s battery system. It’s just that the cars can’t charge at the full speed offered by the new chargers.
The article makes it sound like there are lots of these new, “ultra fast” chargers being deployed and that it’s a problem that the Bolt EV (and Spark EV, too!) don’t support the faster charging speeds. As battery chemistry and related technology improves, GM will surely make improvements to their EVs. It’s all a balancing act between need, cost, and battery longevity.
I think the bigger issue, as you pointed out, is making sure there are enough of these chargers—strategically installed along long distance travel corridors—to make EVs practical for long distance trips. VW’s $2 Billion Electrify America charging network (part of the DieselGate settlement) will definitely help, but Tesla still has a genuine advantage with their charging network. Charging demand is building, so it will be interesting to watch what happens over the next few years.
Fast charge needs to be along the interstates. Travel is where the charge times become an issue.
Most people piss, fuel and go so 20 to 30 min charge times don’t work every 2 hours.
Keep in mind you never run the car fully down or it will take even longer to gain full range.
Battery technology is always improving and the goal is charge times in the range of a tank of gas fill time and lower cost batteries to make the cars cheaper. We will get there but it is still going to take time and investment.
Technology takes time, money and some luck to advance and we have two and may get some luck as they keep trying.
Or today, if you act quickly, you could buy one of the remaining Volts and be statistically 95% electric and have ZERO range anxiety. Then you could wait patiently for the unicorns, oops, I mean Super Chargers to come home, while you enjoy the true joy of (mostly) electric driving.
These are all valid points and Suzy, our 5+ yrs with a Volt has us agreeing whole heartily with you(99.9% nite time home charged). That said, I must say that currently, GM reminds me of the coworker that starts their career working hard that seems to fall asleep at the switch after a while… still waiting to see the “new you” GM! Meanwhile, the US, which is run by big coal, oil & gas more than most countries is in danger of falling way behind in these matters under the current trajectory. Hell, even the Saudis are investing heavily in EV tech as a hedge. If us smucks here online can “think through” these matters in a rational manner, Shirley the power brokers can too, but unfortunately their agenda is not usually in the common best interest. Just don’t call me Shirley!
the EV will be the second car as no one is going to go on a 4000 mile vacation trip in one till there are the same number of charging stations as gas pumps and time to recharge as quick as to fill your fuel tank. to do that we will need many more power generation plants and they create polution unless they are nuclear and the people pushing EV are not going to allow them. people have to learn that anything that produces energy has to produce poluti0n. there are no free lunches.
“unless they are nuclear and the people pushing EV are not going to allow them. people have to learn that anything that produces energy has to produce poluti0n.”
Nope. You can be for EV’s and nuclear power. They are not mutually exclusive of each other.
Furthermore, I can think of at least 3 forms of electrical production that don’t produce pollution; hydro, solar, and wind. If you want, you can put nuclear power back in there too, as it doesn’t produce pollution as an emission into the atmosphere, but it does have a bi-product of its use that can be contained and stored instead.
800 VOLTS! The EV eliminates carbon monoxide poisoning, it’s at the power plant being carefully monitored. Now people will be electrocuted to death in seconds. Eventually, fast chargers will make themselves to the garage and there will be hacks going on too save hundred of dollars, maybe thousands when one is needed to be installed.
It’s raining, flooding is occurring and someone pulls up to a fast charger because they are in a storm, getting low on power and the driver is anxious to get home. Pulls the power cable out to connects to the vehicle while standing in a few inches of water. All the safety devices in the world and there will be failures.
The house gets flooded and the EV is underwater, I sure hope that non replacement fuses are used so when the water drains, no one is burned from a short and possible fire. A lot of new testing will be needed and new kinds safety ratings will be needed.
I hope you aren’t as big an alarmist for undersea power cabling as you are for home-charging of EV’s.
Also, if you house gets flooded and your EV or conventional car is underwater, you car is now a write-off. Replacement fuses (they’re called circuit breakers by the way, as fuses panels haven’t met code in 30 years) don’t even enter into it.
When there is a catastrophic event and failure, you do not want anyone resetting circuit breakers. If you have a recent vehicle, at least a GM model, look at the positive battery terminal, a 165 amp one time fuse.
Phew! sounds like a perfect wish list of highly improbable possibilities, meanwhile a billion people sit inside a vehicle with 20 or so gallons of highly combustible fuel, drive trillions of miles like idiots, smoke and talk on cell phones while refueling, park ’em in their homes ( for some). etc. etc .etc. And yet, regrettably, so few Darwinian award recipients from such mindless habits, yet , introduce a better idea and this kinda current paradigm hugging thinking ensues. It’s almost like some are being paid to speak with such poor thinking.
In several years expect most new car sales to be AEVs. By then, expect car recharging to be automatic and to take about 5 minutes.
Almost nobody needs fast charging when you can litereally charge your car anywhere anytime. Seriously, 90% of the time your car is just sittting somewhere. Inductive slow charging seems more essential to me. It’s one of the behavior adaptations that people just don’t appreciate until they have a BEV with 300+ mile range, which will be pretty much all cars shortly. I predict in the long run aftert all cars are BEV’s (10 years or less) ‘optimized slow charging’ that minimizes battery degradation will be a desired feature.
In ten years maybe most new car will be BEV? I hope not. It’ll take longer for the power grid to come up to snuff to handle the new load. Households in the USA have been using less energy than ever due to LED lighting, HE machines, heating and air conditioning. Power companies are shutting down coal fired plants and completely removing them. Some are converted to NG and not one US power company are adding nuclear power plants.
There are about 250 million registered vehicles in the US of all kinds not including railroad diesel/electric engines. If you do the math and figure the amount of KW’s used to all power vehicles, (fuel consumption x BTU’s), it be a daunting task. I’m not saying it cannot be done but a magic wand won’t work here.
You’re making an assumption that you will have to fully charge the car every night. If this is a 300 mile EV you might only charge weekly or more likely charge daily. It will be no longer than you running an electric dryer. The paradigm is very different than how you gas up your car today.
Will we need more power generation – sure. But it will take decades to remove all gas light vehicles from the road. Most people don’t buy new cars. So if you assume these new EV’s come out starting 2021 and let’s assume everyone in 2021 buys only EV’s. At the current sales volume that’s 17M vehicles in the US – 6.8% of your 250M. It would take 15 year’s of EV only says to replace the 250M vehicles. And it will easily take double that just because not everyone is going to buy an EV in 2021, 2022, 20XXX.
Jason: While I agree with your suggestion that slow charging, inductive or not, would be optimal for many reasons, obviously you do not take “road trips”, unless you are proposing slow charging inductive roadways? I think that might have been proposed in Popular Science Magazine years ago, along with flying cars. The cost of that way-out technology would be astronomical and not ready in 10 years. Otherwise, fast charging for BEVs would still be required by many EV owners, unless we totally revamp our passenger and freight transport systems, another expensive and long term proposal.
In the meantime, you could buy a Volt, slow charge it every night, have an electric car every day, and still have a car capable of occasional long distance travel if required.
just to replace the power generated today in the UISA we would need more that 500,000 turbines and they can only be placed where the wind blows. each one need .75 acres so the are area needed would be more than of some states. same for solar cells as they need acres of area. with wind and solar you also need banks of batteries to store the power to have power when the wind don’t blow and the sun don’t shine. these forms of generation are very expansive so every ones electric bill will go up a lot
There’s plenty of room for windmills off-shore, and there’s always wind there.
lets say you live in a apartment building where there are 50 EVs so you will need 50 slow charge machines where these same people with ICE vehicles can go to the corner gas station fill up and be done in 10 minutes at no expense to the building owner. the build them and they will come has a lot of pitfalls to overcome.
Motorman: I agree, the slow charge at home model really only works for homeowners, who have made the required capital investment, not most apartment dwellers. Though, even a Level 2 charger requires no more than 30-40 Amperes at 240 Volts, probably well within the capability of most domestic power panels, so the biggest problem would be wiring semi-permanent parking spaces, or perhaps with separate metering?. Perhaps landlords might be willing to underwrite the cost if it was covered by an appropriate long-term lease. But, as you said, a lot of pitfalls.
Leave that to land and building developers. They’ll want to attract clients who can pay, and those with EV’s will like the idea of being able to charge in their parking space.
Also, there’s far more regulatory requirements for a gas station and it’s pumps than there are for a slow-charge EV plug. All the architect needs to do is make allowances for conduit plumbing, which can be routed through slabs or under steel decking. Each parking space can get a plug to charge with.
Try getting a gas pump installed inside an underground parking garage of an apartment. City councils will laugh, and building codes will say no, and fire codes will eviscerate you.
down south where people have car ports with the washer and dryer out there you can just plug into the dryer outlet with a breaker change to charge your battery at level 2. I could just plug into my 220 welder outlet in the garage
That’s pretty much the idea. If your breaker panel can support a 220 circuit, you can charge an EV at home.
You justified my statement above with EV chargers. There will be hacks jobs connecting the charger to power. These are not the run under the mill battery chargers that any 220v will do. The last thing you do is unplug the dryer and plug in the charger. When buying a BEV, you must consider the power needed and that your electric panel can handle the additional load and a electrical permit will be required. If not, then your homeowners insurance will not cover any losts. After spending $30K-$90K for an EV, why would you want to have a charger hacked in and if not done properly it will damage your new vehicle. If you think a gas engine rebuild is expensive, electronics for EV will take you to the poor house.
By 2030, expect to be able to phone for any type of vehicle you want and, unless it is a special, for it to arrive within a minute or two. The vehicle will be an AV, probably an AEV. When the AV arrives, you take it to wherever you require, and then it travels on for its next passenger(s).
By 2030, for city car travel, expect USA cities to have about 10 million AEV taxis with a typical fare cost of about $0.20 per mile. Taxi rideshare fare cost should typically be below $0.10 per mile.
The present all-up cost of car travel for car owners is about $1.00 per mile so $0.20 per mile taxi fares will cause most city people to dispense with car ownership.
By 2030, AVs will make not owning a car a big money saver. As well, when you do want a special car you can order exactly the car that suits your requirements and perhaps desires.
Yes, EV charging is important. But as AVs become popular, the issue of EV charging will lose its importance quickly.
so basically a car charger is not harmful for my cellphone? I loved reading this but my confusion remains.
That’s right. A cellphone is not affected by a car charger.