Global Car Makers Announce 15-Minute EV Charging Standard
by Arman Barari
Looks like auto makers will beat mobile phone makers in launching a universal charger that is compatible with most devices. And it’s pretty damn quick as well. They say charging an electric vehicle using this system will take as little as 15 to 20 minutes. Currently, fast chargers need 30 minutes to 1 hour, and if you use the normal charger, it’s a 6-hour job.
Combined Charging System is the result of collaborative efforts between Audi, BMW, Chrysler, Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Porsche and Volkswagen. The system will get its first live demo at Electric Vehicle Symposium 26 (EVS26) May 6-9. As a concept it works, but not sure if it is actually production-ready.
One is, they are talking quick charge. So the auto companies have come up with some method to deal with the heat. In the past, when you charged an battery, you took the caps off the cells so that the gas could escape, this removed both an explosion hazard as well as lowering a fire hazard.
The quicker you charge a battery, the more heat develops. They've made a lot of advances in batteries dealing with the electric car, I am not aware of all of them nor the benefits when it comes to dealing with heat as a result of charging. What I am sure of is that the laws of physics haven't been reinvented.
In the US where they are trying to push the electric car, there's another elephant in the room, no one is talking about.
The electric grid infrastructure, other than for the new wind farms out in western Texas, haven't been upgraded, other than replaced parts where nature has torn it up during storms, since the end of WWII. Nor have new electric generating plants been built. Everyone has NIMBY when it comes to building a new one. For those of you that don't know what NIMBY is, it's Not In My Back Yard.
The result of this long term neglect is that if everyone today started buying electric cars, the power grid couldn't handle it. You're talking everyone coming home from work, plugging in the car to recharge and going to cook supper.
Already this lack of reinvestment in infrastructure is showing and we're no where near an electric car in every yard. Every summer now, while it has been really hot, major cities are starting what is called a rolling brown out. What that means, is there isn't enough electricity to give everyone all at once. So they are rationing electricity by allowing one area of the city to get power at a reduced rate. This reduced rate causes lights to burn dimmer, it can burn up air conditioners, running harder with less source power which again develops heat, stoves don't run as hot, nothing works as planned because all those devices were built with the idea of a steady power supply.
If you add several thousand cars on recharge for the next 4 or 6 hours to the load, it becomes clear just as a thought experiment it isn't going to work as billed.
Now the electric companies are aware of this failing. They are planning in the next few years to jack up rates on power to far higher prices to start the upgrade and pay for it. While it hasn't happened yet, some economists have predicted it is possible that electricity bills could as much as double to pay for the upgrade.
The cost of energy is becoming a burden on the economic livelihood of a nation already having monetary issues.
...15-Minute EV Charging Standard
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