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There are studies that suggest it's not the absolute range per charge of an electric vehicle that matters, it's how quickly you can extend that range. If you lo

There are studies that suggest it's not the absolute range per charge of an electric vehicle that matters, it's how quickly you can extend that range. If you look at ICE cars nobody worries about range despite some of them having abysmal fuel consumption and range. But with a refill taking minutes, and gas pumps being ubiquitous and able to serve a large amount of customers simultaneously without interfering with the capacity of nearby stations, this is never a real issue. Battery energy density is increasing and that's great. But if I were to venture a guess this mostly benefits people who can spend several hours to fully charge them, like at home. A battery that can add 200-300Km of range in 10-15 minutes would probably do a lot for the people who can't charge at home. But this also introduces the next issue: large scale quick charging. Being able to quick charge a substantial number of cars simultaneously takes a lot of power. Having quick charge and a big battery on the car doesn't help at scale unless all charging stations are prepared to deliver the same (maybe giant banks of batteries taking the role of the underground fuel tank). There's no silver bullet when it comes to clean driving. It's a lot of incremental advancements mixed in with some revolutionary ones which need both time and investment. And perhaps a bit of change in human psychology.

Tade0 6y ago
A battery that can add 200-300Km of range in 10-15 minutes would probably do a lot for the people who can't charge at home. Fortunately this is already the case in cars with 250kW charging capability. That being said I don't think habits from combustion engines can and should translate to EVs, so you don't need such quick chargers in cities - cars are normally stationary 90% of the time. Lamp post chargers are a cheap and easy to install solution: https://airqualitynews.com/2019/05/02/1000-ev-charge-points-installed-on-londons-lamp-posts/ https://airqualitynews.com/2019/05/02/1000-ev-charge-points-... Better still, their output could be throttled so as to not introduce too much demand.
- buran77 6y ago
  There are cars that charge up to 350KW but that's not realistic for large scale deployments since the infrastructure development doesn't seem poised to keep up with the EV purchase boom. A gas station can easily service 20 cars simultaneously every couple of minutes. Charging 20 cars at 150-350KW for every charging station brings us to some mind boggling numbers today. EV will have to be able to do both though. Slow charge for constant parking charging - one charger for every parking spot, and quick charging at dedicated stations which would presumably be equipped with everything needed to cover the potentially huge demand.
  - Tade0 6y ago
    Charging 20 cars at 150-350KW for every charging station brings us to some mind boggling numbers today. That's as much as seven electric locomotives at maximum - many more are currently in motion all around Europe, China and Japan. It's a problem, but a solvable one. The technology is here, and is much cheaper than an equivalent hydrogen infrastructure.
    - buran77 6y ago
      Almost every problem is solvable if you throw enough money at it. My point isn't that we're stuck with an unsolvable situation but that EV manufacturers are driving up sales faster than they, governments, or other companies are building the infrastructure to support them. There are 1.2bn cars on the road, even a fraction of that fast charging is a higher load than anything we regularly do now. And that's on top of what we already consume. Imagine just 5 locomotives running at maximum in close to every gas station today and you'll visualize the magnitude. And all that is a problem only as far as people planning today under the assumption that they can just quick charge in 15min and it can only get faster. But they ignore the aspect of scaling. We are nowhere near providing quick charge capability as people imagine when they make such assumptions. And we won't be in 2030 either, when many manufacturers decided to have a fully electric fleet. Which isn't to say that we should stop buying EVs, we should just stop making unrealistic assumptions under best case conditions when planning or comparing tech. It's the kind of assumption people get wrong even when thinking of household items like an electric stove. If each element is 2.5-3KW the assumption is they'll operate at that level even when running together. Then they scratch their head when the food just doesn't seem to get cooked as fast as they expected all of a sudden. Scaling up never comes to mind. As for hydrogen, the best business case for it probably does not overlap the one for BEVs. It should target everything batteries can't, as many other commenters here pointed out. Some public transport operators are building as we speak fleets of fuel cell trains (to the tune of hundreds of millions) because overhead lines are missing in many areas they service and the alternative is diesel. There's a case to be made for quick "diesel like" refueling especially when in the hands of organized operators.
      - 6y ago

Tade0 6y ago

A battery that can add 200-300Km of range in 10-15 minutes would probably do a lot for the people who can't charge at home. Fortunately this is already the case in cars with 250kW charging capability. That being said I don't think habits from combustion engines can and should translate to EVs, so you don't need such quick chargers in cities - cars are normally stationary 90% of the time. Lamp post chargers are a cheap and easy to install solution: https://airqualitynews.com/2019/05/02/1000-ev-charge-points-installed-on-londons-lamp-posts/ https://airqualitynews.com/2019/05/02/1000-ev-charge-points-... Better still, their output could be throttled so as to not introduce too much demand.

buran77 6y ago
There are cars that charge up to 350KW but that's not realistic for large scale deployments since the infrastructure development doesn't seem poised to keep up with the EV purchase boom. A gas station can easily service 20 cars simultaneously every couple of minutes. Charging 20 cars at 150-350KW for every charging station brings us to some mind boggling numbers today. EV will have to be able to do both though. Slow charge for constant parking charging - one charger for every parking spot, and quick charging at dedicated stations which would presumably be equipped with everything needed to cover the potentially huge demand.
- Tade0 6y ago
  Charging 20 cars at 150-350KW for every charging station brings us to some mind boggling numbers today. That's as much as seven electric locomotives at maximum - many more are currently in motion all around Europe, China and Japan. It's a problem, but a solvable one. The technology is here, and is much cheaper than an equivalent hydrogen infrastructure.
  - buran77 6y ago
    Almost every problem is solvable if you throw enough money at it. My point isn't that we're stuck with an unsolvable situation but that EV manufacturers are driving up sales faster than they, governments, or other companies are building the infrastructure to support them. There are 1.2bn cars on the road, even a fraction of that fast charging is a higher load than anything we regularly do now. And that's on top of what we already consume. Imagine just 5 locomotives running at maximum in close to every gas station today and you'll visualize the magnitude. And all that is a problem only as far as people planning today under the assumption that they can just quick charge in 15min and it can only get faster. But they ignore the aspect of scaling. We are nowhere near providing quick charge capability as people imagine when they make such assumptions. And we won't be in 2030 either, when many manufacturers decided to have a fully electric fleet. Which isn't to say that we should stop buying EVs, we should just stop making unrealistic assumptions under best case conditions when planning or comparing tech. It's the kind of assumption people get wrong even when thinking of household items like an electric stove. If each element is 2.5-3KW the assumption is they'll operate at that level even when running together. Then they scratch their head when the food just doesn't seem to get cooked as fast as they expected all of a sudden. Scaling up never comes to mind. As for hydrogen, the best business case for it probably does not overlap the one for BEVs. It should target everything batteries can't, as many other commenters here pointed out. Some public transport operators are building as we speak fleets of fuel cell trains (to the tune of hundreds of millions) because overhead lines are missing in many areas they service and the alternative is diesel. There's a case to be made for quick "diesel like" refueling especially when in the hands of organized operators.
    - 6y ago