4 ms·

But where are you going to find a 500kW charger? Maybe if you put a complex and expensive supercapacitor bank in the charger, but then the charger will need to

But where are you going to find a 500kW charger? Maybe if you put a complex and expensive supercapacitor bank in the charger, but then the charger will need to recharge between charging sessions. And what guage of copper will you need to push over 1000A? You would probably need to hook up a bunch of parallel cables to charge at that rate.

rini17 5y ago
The supercharger will likely have the same Al-ion battery. And there's still untapped potential of using high voltage, when 10kV switching is possible with recent semiconductors, then to get 500kW means only 50A current.
- thatfrenchguy 5y ago
  You're not going to have the generation capacity for this to be useful though. For your users it's nicer to have 4 x 150kw stations than 1 600kw station.
  - rini17 5y ago
    If users are willing to pay 10x normal price of electricity for 600kw supercharging - and why not, that is still comparable price to fossil fuels on basis of added distance - the generation and improved grid will certainly appear.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  High current high voltage is very deadly combination and expensive. I think they would want to stay away from this because the amount of insulation and safety inspections will render this unprofitable. I think it is much easier to just swallow the pill an work with high current which at least is not going to immediately kill you if you manage to nick the cable or complete the circuit with your body in some other way.
  - rini17 5y ago
    Such "very deadly" voltage is in operation for decades very close to your house, yet it is somehow profitable. Granted, the cables aren't usually manipulated by consumers. But the currently used car chargers are deadly already if you manage to do the things you describe. The cables and connectors are constructed to prevent it, this is very old and well-understood technology.
ggreer 5y ago
Tesla superchargers already charge at 250kW. They use liquid cooling in the cable.
KaiserPro 5y ago
depends how you look at it, but for regenerative breaking, it can be trivial to generate spikes of 10-40kw. Having a battery that can handle that and not get hot or loose capacity is really useful. As for 500kw chargers, depending on the round trip efficiency and the discharge rate, using these batteries as a charging source would seem reasonable. It also would be useful for grid stabilization, having something that can instantly absorb a few megawatts would be really useful.
lmilcin 5y ago
> what guage of copper will you need to push over 1000A I don't think 1000A is that huge of an issue. These guys weld with 1000A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j61ezBX-EyA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j61ezBX-EyA Trucks use that kind of current to start and it doesn't seem to be an issue, though the starting sequence is rather short so it may be counting on the fact that some stuff will not have time to get heated up. I don't want to say you can just put 1000A into existing cables, what I want to say that I can imagine this being manageable with some additional engineering (and especially safety) challenges to be solved.
brightball 5y ago
Pretty sure that’s what https://ozopenergy.com https://ozopenergy.com does.
jerf 5y ago
The competition EVs face is the number of miles per second you can insert into your gas car. EVs don't have to charge at the maximum possible theoretical speed, just get the ratio with gas cars down from the hours:minutes ratio that it is at now. If an EV could charge in 10-15 minutes, range anxiety would become a thing of the past, even if it could be done more quickly in theory.
clouddrover 5y ago
> But where are you going to find a 500kW charger? 350 kW CCS chargers are deployed all over the world. A few are 400 kW: https://insideevs.com/news/375020/repsol-most-powerful-charging-station-europe/ https://insideevs.com/news/375020/repsol-most-powerful-charg... 500 kW chargers are within the CCS specification (1,000 volts, 500 amps). Longer term I imagine companies will start deploying 500 kW CCS chargers.

rini17 5y ago

The supercharger will likely have the same Al-ion battery. And there's still untapped potential of using high voltage, when 10kV switching is possible with recent semiconductors, then to get 500kW means only 50A current.

thatfrenchguy 5y ago
You're not going to have the generation capacity for this to be useful though. For your users it's nicer to have 4 x 150kw stations than 1 600kw station.
- rini17 5y ago
  If users are willing to pay 10x normal price of electricity for 600kw supercharging - and why not, that is still comparable price to fossil fuels on basis of added distance - the generation and improved grid will certainly appear.
lmilcin 5y ago
High current high voltage is very deadly combination and expensive. I think they would want to stay away from this because the amount of insulation and safety inspections will render this unprofitable. I think it is much easier to just swallow the pill an work with high current which at least is not going to immediately kill you if you manage to nick the cable or complete the circuit with your body in some other way.
- rini17 5y ago
  Such "very deadly" voltage is in operation for decades very close to your house, yet it is somehow profitable. Granted, the cables aren't usually manipulated by consumers. But the currently used car chargers are deadly already if you manage to do the things you describe. The cables and connectors are constructed to prevent it, this is very old and well-understood technology.

ggreer 5y ago

Tesla superchargers already charge at 250kW. They use liquid cooling in the cable.

KaiserPro 5y ago

depends how you look at it, but for regenerative breaking, it can be trivial to generate spikes of 10-40kw. Having a battery that can handle that and not get hot or loose capacity is really useful. As for 500kw chargers, depending on the round trip efficiency and the discharge rate, using these batteries as a charging source would seem reasonable. It also would be useful for grid stabilization, having something that can instantly absorb a few megawatts would be really useful.

lmilcin 5y ago

> what guage of copper will you need to push over 1000A I don't think 1000A is that huge of an issue. These guys weld with 1000A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j61ezBX-EyA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j61ezBX-EyA Trucks use that kind of current to start and it doesn't seem to be an issue, though the starting sequence is rather short so it may be counting on the fact that some stuff will not have time to get heated up. I don't want to say you can just put 1000A into existing cables, what I want to say that I can imagine this being manageable with some additional engineering (and especially safety) challenges to be solved.

brightball 5y ago

Pretty sure that’s what https://ozopenergy.com https://ozopenergy.com does.

jerf 5y ago

The competition EVs face is the number of miles per second you can insert into your gas car. EVs don't have to charge at the maximum possible theoretical speed, just get the ratio with gas cars down from the hours:minutes ratio that it is at now. If an EV could charge in 10-15 minutes, range anxiety would become a thing of the past, even if it could be done more quickly in theory.

clouddrover 5y ago

> But where are you going to find a 500kW charger? 350 kW CCS chargers are deployed all over the world. A few are 400 kW: https://insideevs.com/news/375020/repsol-most-powerful-charging-station-europe/ https://insideevs.com/news/375020/repsol-most-powerful-charg... 500 kW chargers are within the CCS specification (1,000 volts, 500 amps). Longer term I imagine companies will start deploying 500 kW CCS chargers.