7 ms·

Electric car batteries with five-minute charging times produced

45 points by laktak 6y ago

lukeitup 6y ago
Electric cars for the vast majority is not too far away. Petrol cars will still exist, but just as super sports car for enthusiasts.
- FooHentai 6y ago
  Widespread adoption for small and medium family car duties is looking really good right now - They're almost a no-brainer for any 2-car family already, but somewhat held back by the 'new and unfamiliar' hump. There is still some way to go for any one-car household that wants to be able to make longer trips a few times a year (and is not willing to rent for those occasions, which although possible is an option I doubt many will opt for). Large family vehicles on the other hand, there are a few hybrids that fit the bill but none of them are stand-out and the additional mechanical complexity is (rightfully) giving folks pause. The early prius for example got it right and was quite reliable, later iterations unfortunately have not lived up to the reputation it built. But then there's also rural car ownership where fewer, longer-range trips are the norm. Not much adoption to be seen there for very good reasons, neither the cars nor the charging infrastructure is suitable. Depreciation is a kicker, also. Early adopters are finding that with the rapid progress on range/features and manufacturers chasing lower RRPs to get more adoption, when they come to trade up to something newer the value of their early purchases is lower than a similarly-aged ICE. All of this is still good progress, but I think we're at least a decade if not several away from ICE being pushed into a niche. Plus without some breakthroughs in battery tech, there's only so far into the market things can go. Fortunately some promising stuff seems to be on the horizon i.e. solid state.
  - bryanlarsen 6y ago
    Every Tesla owner I know was a 2 car family reassured by the fact that their other car was ICE that they could use for long trips. Once they got the Tesla it became the vehicle used for all long trips. There are very few destinations that aren't within 250 miles of a supercharger and do not have at least a 115V plug available to recharge the car while you're at the destination. And as far as I'm concerned a Y is a large family vehicle. It's no Escalade, but it's larger than our small minivan. If you disagree, there are some large trucks and SUV's coming in 2021/2022. Depreciation is a kicker all right, but in the other direction. All actively cooled electric cars (IOW everything except the Leaf) depreciate a lot slower than a gas car. And that's just going to accelerate. Imagine trying to sell a 2020 ICE car in 2030. 98% of 2020 cars are ICE, but in 2030 the majority of new car purchases are going to be electric. Buyers of used cars want basically the same thing as buyers of electric cars, so the small number of available electrics are going to be in high demand.
- olau 6y ago
  I think the super sports cars are actually turning electric faster than their cheap counterparts?
londons_explore 6y ago
My favourite interview question for engineering grads: * Someone has just invented a 1 minute charge time car battery. They want you to design the cable for the user to plug the car into the charge station. Can you sketch some design ideas and point out the pros and cons of each? It's a great question because it's almost impossible... Any cable that can deliver the tens of megawatts needs a ton of copper and a ton of cooling, and usually ends up too heavy for grandma to move. Then high voltages are investigated, leading to insulators which can't do high temperatures, are stupidly thick themselves, or are non-flexible... Sometimes candidates suggest superconductors, but then they need to come up with an answer to cooling, keeping it flexible, and stopping the user getting frostbite. As an interviewer, it shows me how quickly a candidate can guess the magnitude of each parameter in their design and iterate designs to get everything reasonable. That ability tends to match an engineer who can make a prototype of something in a few days.
- numlock86 6y ago
  I've seen prototype "cables" designed to handle up to 800 volts at 100 amps for EV DC charging. In fact I had to carry a sample (just the cable and plug on the EV side, other end was open) a few meters and oh boy, I can still feel my shoulder and back just thinking about that. No idea how any regular everyday consumer is supposed to handle that. And that was even without any cooling liquid pumped inside which you'd probably have in the live application.
  - londons_explore 6y ago
    That's 80 kilowatts. To 'charge' a big gasoline truck, you'd put in say 20 gallons, which if done via electricity in 1 minute would be 57 megawatts, nearly 1000x more.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - audunw 6y ago
      A gallon of gasoline is around 33kWh of energy. 33.41kWh*20/1min = 40MW Diesel might be closer to 50MW? But regardless, it's not 33kWh per gallon of energy to the wheels. Most of the energy is wasted. So of course a battery electric truck wouldn't require that much energy to do the same work. I've seen that trucks and buses just use multiple charging cables. But yeah, you'll never charge a large truck from 0 to 100% in 1 minute. Overnight charging will be the norm.
kgc 6y ago
This technology claims 100 miles in 5 minutes. As of 2019, a Tesla can charge 100 miles in 7 minutes using the v3 supercharger. https://electrek.co/2019/07/02/tesla-supercharger-v3-range-minutes/ https://electrek.co/2019/07/02/tesla-supercharger-v3-range-m...
- chinathrow 6y ago
  > This technology claims 100 miles in 5 minutes. ...in 2025 (from the article).
- Skinney 6y ago
  But probably only when the battery is in the 10-20% capacity range, right? It doesn't say in the article, but I wonder if these batteries can charge 100 miles per 5 minutes for a larger range than current vehicles. I'd happily charge at 150kw instead of 300kw, if that meant that I could do so from 10-80 instead of 10-20.
- threeseed 6y ago
  Taycan can add 60 miles in 4 minutes using 800V, 350kW and not just from zero initial charge. Which makes this a ~25% improvement.
2rsf 6y ago
That's cool but still limiting, the infrastructure is going to be expensive and not easily available in remote places. Batteries that could be charged by "refueling" [1], or fuel cells that require hydrogen are a much more feasible solution and environmentally safe for the long term [1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/battery-recharges-your-electric-car-instantly-180963621/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/battery-recharges-...
- pedrocr 6y ago
  This is a common objection by people that haven't lived with an EV. In reality convenient very slow charging is what you really want. Cars spend 90%+ of their time parked. Connecting them to a common outlet at those times is more than enough for charging to be something you stop thinking about. Going to a gas station becomes a strange inconvenience you used to have to do. In a few cases you then go on a road trip and use a fast charger. What we actually have to build out is all that slow and simple infrastructure in city parking and other convenient places. The grid is already everywhere. Losing all that convenience, 2/3 of your energy, and having to build out a completely new fueling infrastructure to use hydrogen fuel cells just makes no sense.
  - deergomoo 6y ago
    > In reality convenient very slow charging is what you really want Which can also be an obstacle of its own—something like 60% of homes in the UK only have on-street parking, making overnight charging difficult to say the least.
  - paul_f 6y ago
    I live in a suburban neighborhood Florida and less than half of the all cars here live inside of a garage. Many people who live in apartments or condominiums do not have a garage at all. I don't think slow overnight charging is feasible for even half of the cars here, and we're not even in a dense location.
    - audunw 6y ago
codecamper 6y ago
How to destroy your battery fast. This whole "fast charging" concept is people trying to 100% mimic the gas powered car. EVs are different. You can fill them up overnight. Or with excess solar on the grid.
- GuB-42 6y ago
  Fast charging is here to address a major shortcoming of current electric cars in general: range is short and there is no easy way of recharging en route. The "charge overnight" model is ideal for commutes within the EV range, but not for long road trips. This is a problem and we need solutions. Solutions include: - Fast charging: Yes, it is mimicking gas cars, but gas cars are great at that, so it is not a bad thing - Huge batteries: The idea is to have enough range not to need en route recharging. Problem is, batteries are heavy and expensive - An internal combustion engine: Purists don't like it, but it can be a good compromise for many people - Battery swapping: it has been suggested, Tesla even did a demo, but it doesn't seem practical If you don't consider it a problem because "EVs are different", then EVs will never replace gas cars. And replacing gas cars with EVs as much as possible is exactly what we want.
  - nojokes 6y ago
    Actually when I am driving long range, I will do a break in every 4 hours (top). What is needed is actually a tense infrastructure of charging stations. These do not have to be like gas stations - big and manned, so more can be added.
  - somedude895 6y ago
    I've driven my 75kwh Model S all over Europe, and it works just fine. With a dense fast-charging network, you make a 30 minute stop every 2.5 hours. Stretch your legs, go to the bathroom and have a cup of coffee. Sure, if you're in a hurry, you'll be at your destination slightly quicker in a gas powered car, but that's normally not the case on a 1'000 km trip.
  - Hypx 6y ago
    The idea of the fuel cell car tends to loom large in such conversations. It solves all problems in one package, without having to resort to problematic ideas like battery swapping.
zed88 6y ago
This is not scalable with the current grid infrastructure and will destroy grid equipments via the accentuated grid harmonics. https://evreporter.com/harmonic-pollution-and-ev-charging/ https://evreporter.com/harmonic-pollution-and-ev-charging/
- londons_explore 6y ago
  The person who designs the firmware of the charger has full control over the harmonics it produces. They aren't a tricky engineering problem to solve - but nobody is too worried about solving them right now because the people who maintain the grid and who have to deal with harmonic losses aren't the same people as those who design the charger.
- imtringued 6y ago
  Did you read the article? The conclusion is a good charger design can the problem. If that's all it takes then the problem is trivial. You just need to regulate EV chargers. It's not as bad as you might think because replacing old chargers is easier than replacing all EVs.
jmcnulty 6y ago
My ideal would a combo package with a 100-mile battery range for my weekly commute plus a 200-mile hydrogen fuel cell to back it up. Most of my usual monthly travel would be on battery and the recharge time for something that small wouldn't be an inconvenience. The hydrogen would only get used a couple of times a month, but if I needed to travel much longer distances, I'd have the freedom to do so without any range anxiety.
LinuxBender 6y ago
So this is likely off topic, but if speed is the primary concern, then perhaps the solution would be to not own the batteries and instead have a modular system under the vehicle that permits speed-swapping multiple battery modules. more than one module, so that if contacts wear out, you dont lose 100% available power Think cordless drill. Pop it out, pop it in, on your way. The charging station would need to verify the condition of each module, but charging time would be less critical. How to augment gas stations for this? Build a portal ramp system that drivers pull up onto, robot arm swaps modules, manual method fallback in case of robot failure. I bet Elon could even make a station that does not require a robot, just design the battery so that as you drive over, one module is swapped at a time. The swapping station itself could be modular, much like Elon's tesla factories. Disadvantage, gas station needs to rent or buy this portable station. Advantages, anyone can rent or buy one. You could have a gas station anywhere there is electricity. Not technically being a gas station might change zoning requirements. Also as battery tech evolves, you car automatically benefits. Thoughts?

45 points by laktak 6y ago

Electric cars for the vast majority is not too far away. Petrol cars will still exist, but just as super sports car for enthusiasts.

FooHentai 6y ago
Widespread adoption for small and medium family car duties is looking really good right now - They're almost a no-brainer for any 2-car family already, but somewhat held back by the 'new and unfamiliar' hump. There is still some way to go for any one-car household that wants to be able to make longer trips a few times a year (and is not willing to rent for those occasions, which although possible is an option I doubt many will opt for). Large family vehicles on the other hand, there are a few hybrids that fit the bill but none of them are stand-out and the additional mechanical complexity is (rightfully) giving folks pause. The early prius for example got it right and was quite reliable, later iterations unfortunately have not lived up to the reputation it built. But then there's also rural car ownership where fewer, longer-range trips are the norm. Not much adoption to be seen there for very good reasons, neither the cars nor the charging infrastructure is suitable. Depreciation is a kicker, also. Early adopters are finding that with the rapid progress on range/features and manufacturers chasing lower RRPs to get more adoption, when they come to trade up to something newer the value of their early purchases is lower than a similarly-aged ICE. All of this is still good progress, but I think we're at least a decade if not several away from ICE being pushed into a niche. Plus without some breakthroughs in battery tech, there's only so far into the market things can go. Fortunately some promising stuff seems to be on the horizon i.e. solid state.
- bryanlarsen 6y ago
  Every Tesla owner I know was a 2 car family reassured by the fact that their other car was ICE that they could use for long trips. Once they got the Tesla it became the vehicle used for all long trips. There are very few destinations that aren't within 250 miles of a supercharger and do not have at least a 115V plug available to recharge the car while you're at the destination. And as far as I'm concerned a Y is a large family vehicle. It's no Escalade, but it's larger than our small minivan. If you disagree, there are some large trucks and SUV's coming in 2021/2022. Depreciation is a kicker all right, but in the other direction. All actively cooled electric cars (IOW everything except the Leaf) depreciate a lot slower than a gas car. And that's just going to accelerate. Imagine trying to sell a 2020 ICE car in 2030. 98% of 2020 cars are ICE, but in 2030 the majority of new car purchases are going to be electric. Buyers of used cars want basically the same thing as buyers of electric cars, so the small number of available electrics are going to be in high demand.
olau 6y ago
I think the super sports cars are actually turning electric faster than their cheap counterparts?

londons_explore 6y ago

My favourite interview question for engineering grads: * Someone has just invented a 1 minute charge time car battery. They want you to design the cable for the user to plug the car into the charge station. Can you sketch some design ideas and point out the pros and cons of each? It's a great question because it's almost impossible... Any cable that can deliver the tens of megawatts needs a ton of copper and a ton of cooling, and usually ends up too heavy for grandma to move. Then high voltages are investigated, leading to insulators which can't do high temperatures, are stupidly thick themselves, or are non-flexible... Sometimes candidates suggest superconductors, but then they need to come up with an answer to cooling, keeping it flexible, and stopping the user getting frostbite. As an interviewer, it shows me how quickly a candidate can guess the magnitude of each parameter in their design and iterate designs to get everything reasonable. That ability tends to match an engineer who can make a prototype of something in a few days.

numlock86 6y ago
I've seen prototype "cables" designed to handle up to 800 volts at 100 amps for EV DC charging. In fact I had to carry a sample (just the cable and plug on the EV side, other end was open) a few meters and oh boy, I can still feel my shoulder and back just thinking about that. No idea how any regular everyday consumer is supposed to handle that. And that was even without any cooling liquid pumped inside which you'd probably have in the live application.
- londons_explore 6y ago
  That's 80 kilowatts. To 'charge' a big gasoline truck, you'd put in say 20 gallons, which if done via electricity in 1 minute would be 57 megawatts, nearly 1000x more.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - audunw 6y ago
    A gallon of gasoline is around 33kWh of energy. 33.41kWh*20/1min = 40MW Diesel might be closer to 50MW? But regardless, it's not 33kWh per gallon of energy to the wheels. Most of the energy is wasted. So of course a battery electric truck wouldn't require that much energy to do the same work. I've seen that trucks and buses just use multiple charging cables. But yeah, you'll never charge a large truck from 0 to 100% in 1 minute. Overnight charging will be the norm.

kgc 6y ago

This technology claims 100 miles in 5 minutes. As of 2019, a Tesla can charge 100 miles in 7 minutes using the v3 supercharger. https://electrek.co/2019/07/02/tesla-supercharger-v3-range-minutes/ https://electrek.co/2019/07/02/tesla-supercharger-v3-range-m...

chinathrow 6y ago
> This technology claims 100 miles in 5 minutes. ...in 2025 (from the article).
Skinney 6y ago
But probably only when the battery is in the 10-20% capacity range, right? It doesn't say in the article, but I wonder if these batteries can charge 100 miles per 5 minutes for a larger range than current vehicles. I'd happily charge at 150kw instead of 300kw, if that meant that I could do so from 10-80 instead of 10-20.
threeseed 6y ago
Taycan can add 60 miles in 4 minutes using 800V, 350kW and not just from zero initial charge. Which makes this a ~25% improvement.

2rsf 6y ago

That's cool but still limiting, the infrastructure is going to be expensive and not easily available in remote places. Batteries that could be charged by "refueling" [1], or fuel cells that require hydrogen are a much more feasible solution and environmentally safe for the long term [1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/battery-recharges-your-electric-car-instantly-180963621/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/battery-recharges-...

pedrocr 6y ago
This is a common objection by people that haven't lived with an EV. In reality convenient very slow charging is what you really want. Cars spend 90%+ of their time parked. Connecting them to a common outlet at those times is more than enough for charging to be something you stop thinking about. Going to a gas station becomes a strange inconvenience you used to have to do. In a few cases you then go on a road trip and use a fast charger. What we actually have to build out is all that slow and simple infrastructure in city parking and other convenient places. The grid is already everywhere. Losing all that convenience, 2/3 of your energy, and having to build out a completely new fueling infrastructure to use hydrogen fuel cells just makes no sense.
- deergomoo 6y ago
  > In reality convenient very slow charging is what you really want Which can also be an obstacle of its own—something like 60% of homes in the UK only have on-street parking, making overnight charging difficult to say the least.
- paul_f 6y ago
  I live in a suburban neighborhood Florida and less than half of the all cars here live inside of a garage. Many people who live in apartments or condominiums do not have a garage at all. I don't think slow overnight charging is feasible for even half of the cars here, and we're not even in a dense location.
  - audunw 6y ago

codecamper 6y ago

How to destroy your battery fast. This whole "fast charging" concept is people trying to 100% mimic the gas powered car. EVs are different. You can fill them up overnight. Or with excess solar on the grid.

GuB-42 6y ago
Fast charging is here to address a major shortcoming of current electric cars in general: range is short and there is no easy way of recharging en route. The "charge overnight" model is ideal for commutes within the EV range, but not for long road trips. This is a problem and we need solutions. Solutions include: - Fast charging: Yes, it is mimicking gas cars, but gas cars are great at that, so it is not a bad thing - Huge batteries: The idea is to have enough range not to need en route recharging. Problem is, batteries are heavy and expensive - An internal combustion engine: Purists don't like it, but it can be a good compromise for many people - Battery swapping: it has been suggested, Tesla even did a demo, but it doesn't seem practical If you don't consider it a problem because "EVs are different", then EVs will never replace gas cars. And replacing gas cars with EVs as much as possible is exactly what we want.
- nojokes 6y ago
  Actually when I am driving long range, I will do a break in every 4 hours (top). What is needed is actually a tense infrastructure of charging stations. These do not have to be like gas stations - big and manned, so more can be added.
- somedude895 6y ago
  I've driven my 75kwh Model S all over Europe, and it works just fine. With a dense fast-charging network, you make a 30 minute stop every 2.5 hours. Stretch your legs, go to the bathroom and have a cup of coffee. Sure, if you're in a hurry, you'll be at your destination slightly quicker in a gas powered car, but that's normally not the case on a 1'000 km trip.
- Hypx 6y ago
  The idea of the fuel cell car tends to loom large in such conversations. It solves all problems in one package, without having to resort to problematic ideas like battery swapping.

zed88 6y ago

This is not scalable with the current grid infrastructure and will destroy grid equipments via the accentuated grid harmonics. https://evreporter.com/harmonic-pollution-and-ev-charging/ https://evreporter.com/harmonic-pollution-and-ev-charging/

londons_explore 6y ago
The person who designs the firmware of the charger has full control over the harmonics it produces. They aren't a tricky engineering problem to solve - but nobody is too worried about solving them right now because the people who maintain the grid and who have to deal with harmonic losses aren't the same people as those who design the charger.
imtringued 6y ago
Did you read the article? The conclusion is a good charger design can the problem. If that's all it takes then the problem is trivial. You just need to regulate EV chargers. It's not as bad as you might think because replacing old chargers is easier than replacing all EVs.

jmcnulty 6y ago

My ideal would a combo package with a 100-mile battery range for my weekly commute plus a 200-mile hydrogen fuel cell to back it up. Most of my usual monthly travel would be on battery and the recharge time for something that small wouldn't be an inconvenience. The hydrogen would only get used a couple of times a month, but if I needed to travel much longer distances, I'd have the freedom to do so without any range anxiety.

LinuxBender 6y ago

So this is likely off topic, but if speed is the primary concern, then perhaps the solution would be to not own the batteries and instead have a modular system under the vehicle that permits speed-swapping multiple battery modules. more than one module, so that if contacts wear out, you dont lose 100% available power Think cordless drill. Pop it out, pop it in, on your way. The charging station would need to verify the condition of each module, but charging time would be less critical. How to augment gas stations for this? Build a portal ramp system that drivers pull up onto, robot arm swaps modules, manual method fallback in case of robot failure. I bet Elon could even make a station that does not require a robot, just design the battery so that as you drive over, one module is swapped at a time. The swapping station itself could be modular, much like Elon's tesla factories. Disadvantage, gas station needs to rent or buy this portable station. Advantages, anyone can rent or buy one. You could have a gas station anywhere there is electricity. Not technically being a gas station might change zoning requirements. Also as battery tech evolves, you car automatically benefits. Thoughts?