Because “the grid can’t handle it.” Yet somehow it can handle a half dozen more suburban subdivisions full of McMansions, endless strip malls, big box stores, parking lots, and highway expansions.
Also crypto mining and ai power suckers.
100 kWh pack × 3600 = 360,000,000 joules (MJ)
5 minutes = (60 seconds × 5) = 300 seconds
360,000,000 (joules) ÷ 300 (time) = 1,200,000 W
If you want to recharge a full 300-mile Li-Ion battery in 5 minutes, you need to supply 1200 kW (1.2 MW) of power.
The United States struggles with 4.8 kW home chargers and 150 kW superchargers.
(Also hopefully this small math exercise helped you understand the absolutely ridiculous power consumption of personal automobiles, driving at highway speeds averages ~18 kW* consistently)
If you want to recharge a full 300-mile Li-Ion battery in 5 minutes, you need to supply 1200 kW (1.2 MW) of power.
Which is why cloning the traditional centralised ICE refuelling station concept doesn’t work with EVs.
The United States struggles with 4.8 kW home chargers and 150 kW superchargers.
With an average daily usage of 20kWh for a 60 mile commute in a mix of stop and go and highway traffic, a 4.8 kW charger can top off your EV battery at home in 4 hours. A 2kW charger can do it in 10 hours.
That’s the mindset that needs to change. You shouldn’t have to visit an external charging station every few days to cram another 100kWh of power into your battery. You put a charge into your battery at home every night. It’s fully charged again every morning for your commute. The mega charging stations are then only used for long distance travel.
So, just like we built ICE refuelling stations dotted all over the place, we need to put in the infrastructure for localised EV charging at homes. Colder climates have the advantage already, as parking lots are already full of engine block heater connections and in a lot of euro countries they’re used for EV charging. It can be done, it’s just a change.
Lots of people live in apartments where charging is much more difficult. Hopefully some day we see lots of slow chargers available at apartment complexes. It’s a little chicken-and-egg, but I think we’re moving in the right direction.
Now imagine if we had these recharging stations with multiple bays, all needing 1.2MW.
Now imagine the 120-pump Buccee’s gas station with them. And like 10 nuclear power plants with super capacitor banks.
Buccee’s does already have a pretty prodigious charging array at each location.
But for real, everyone should have charging at their own home. It’s way cheaper and more convenient. Other chargers are effectively for road trips only.
I live in 150 year old apartment that can’t even handle an electric stove, and only has street parking. Where is a charger supposed to go for people in dense areas? EV’s are not a one and done replacement for ICE vehicles. The truth is we need less cars and more public transport
Well that’s also true. More public transit fixes even more problems than EVs. But let’s not forget that street parking is friendly to electric charging stations - they can be tiny! That’s a city infrastructure issue more than a space issue.
The sincere answer is public chargers on the street. Similar to parking meters. They don’t have to be fast chargers, 240v or even 120v would do the trick.
What does the charging cable look like?
It is my understanding that the cables used for most car charging stations are actually liquid cooled. There’s only so thick and stiff you can make that cable before a significant number of people just can’t physically plug in their cars. What kind of conductors do you need to pump a megawatt of power?
It’d be a pretty thick cable to push 2500 amps on 480V - at least four braids @ 625A each.
It’s ridiculous and I don’t have the exact knowledge, haha
Apparently they’re going to push 1000 volts at 1000 amps through it. Which…STILL!
Where on earth did you get 50 kW from? My car isn’t very efficient and it’s more like 18 kW on the freeway.
With an average consumption of 50 kW a first gen Nissan Leaf would last like 20 minutes. They were short range, but not that short.
Haha, I knew I was making a mistake when I was writing that figure.
ICE efficiency is around 22% so 50 kW × 0.22 = 11 kW constant.
Your figure of 18 kW is more pragmatic/empirical, so I defer to your measurement :)
That’s not what that article says.
This past spring, two major Chinese companies announced breakthroughs in battery technology that will enable electric vehicles to drive hundreds of miles on a five-minute charge.
BYD, which is now the world’s largest producer of electric vehicles, has developed a battery that has a peak charging capacity of 1,000 kilowatts, also known as a megawatt.
We also have battery tech that can theoretically be charged that fast. We have for years. Charging a single small test cell in a few seconds is relatively easy. Getting it out of the lab, into a factory working at scale, then in vehicles on the road charging that fast is a very different thing. Those kinds of leaps in battery labs have been a dime a dozen for decades now. In the real world we just get a steady march of slow improvement.
While other automakers may eventually figure out how to build megawatt charging systems, it won’t happen overnight, Fisher said.
They haven’t “rolled out” any chargers that can do what they are claiming with the batteries. As Naz@sh.itjust.works pointed out with the math. That level of charging doubles what even the best 800V systems can do. And there are barley a few dozen of those in the world.
BYD has promised to build 4,000 “megawatt flash charging” stations in China to support its new cars with 1,000-kilowatt charging capacity.
No time table. Nothing real. Just a marketing “promise”.
Those kinds of leaps in battery labs have been a dime a dozen for decades now.
I was pretty irritated when I saw this.
In the real world we just get a steady march of slow improvement.
Well, there goes my 15-minute tirade on how much batteries have improved in the last 3 decades.
The US is speed running into the past, technologically. Yeah, AI datacenters are being built, but thats mostly “jump on bandwagon” and also, that’s about all of it
Green energy is actively being killed, while the rest of the world is leaving the US in the dust.
Good luck with your dying empire, idiots
Charging a giant battery that fast seems like it’s only possible because they are foregoing safety features to prevent fires.
Its more a problem of actually supplying the electricity in a consumer environment. You can do it safely, but actually providing the generation and transmission to support it is hard
It’s a fairly recent tech breakthrough with Chinese patent protection/expertise the result of investing to disrupt oil consumption. in a supportive environment. US needs the geopolitical relevance of oil to have more wars. New administration is trying to bankrupt all energy disruption players who might threaten oil oligarchy. Explanation is not rocket appliances.
Because electric cars are “woke”?
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“Regulations.”
In particular, that we make grid interconnection hard. This impacts wind and solar too
