4 ms·

IMO the biggest challenge is the rapid recharge (< 5 minutes). You just think of a college football Saturday where 100k people drive in, tailgate all day and t

IMO the biggest challenge is the rapid recharge (< 5 minutes). You just think of a college football Saturday where 100k people drive in, tailgate all day and then either stay in a hotel or head back the same day. Often coming from 3-4 hours away. It’s simply not realistic for all those vehicles to need to do 45 minutes of charging. When that gets solved, you’ll see rapid adoption.

moralestapia 4y ago
Further elaborating on that, I'd like to see what kind of electrical infra you need to (even partially) charge 20k cars in 5 minutes. That's about one Tsar Bomba of energy.
- neon_electro 4y ago
  It’s a red herring. We don’t need to do that.
  - brightball 4y ago
    This problem specifically is why I keep an eye on the Graphene Aluminum Ion battery technology coming from Graphene Manufacturing Group. Graphene has seemed to be the key to rapid charging while maintaining temperatures for over a decade. The challenge was always getting enough usable graphene at low cost without mining.
- philipkglass 4y ago
  I'd like to see what kind of electrical infra you need to (even partially) charge 20k cars in 5 minutes. That's about one Tsar Bomba of energy. This is too high by 4 orders of magnitude. 100 kWh is a larger than average battery capacity for a contemporary BEV [1]. That's 2000 MWh for 20,000 vehicles charging from empty (modulo charging inefficiencies). 1 megaton is 4.18 * 10^15 joules or 1,162,000 MWh [2] while the Tsar Bomba had a yield of at least 50 megatons as tested [3]. So charging 20k electric cars from empty requires about 0.003% as much energy as the Tsar Bomba released. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S#Battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S#Battery [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba
  - moralestapia 4y ago
    You're right, I jumped from kWh -> TWh, where it should've been kWh -> GWh. Still, if you look at power, that much energy moving in 5 minutes is about 24GW. That's massive. Unless I'm wrong with numbers again :P.
epistasis 4y ago
How many of that 100k are driving 3-4 hours each way? 5 minute charging is a nothing burger. If they are tailgating for hours, they can do normal level 2 and get what they need. 5 minute charging is something that sounds like a good idea if you've never had an electric car, and are used to only charging at very specialized locations that you have to seek out and spend dedicated time at, ie gas stations. But after actually having an electric car, the idea becomes superfluous. Current charging speed is going to be just fine for 99-99.5% of those driving long distance to a football game.
- brightball 4y ago
  Drive there, drive back and expect to fully recharge at some point on the trip. Most EV ranges I see are in the 300 mile ballpark (currently) which is going to require a full recharge for the round trip. On the day to day with an EV, I agree it’s not a big deal. Travel is a very big deal though.
  - theshrike79 4y ago
    ...wait? People drive SIX HUNDRED MILES round trip to watch a college football game?
    - brightball 4y ago
      Just using a drive to Clemson, SC as an example: Charleston, SC (240 miles, 580 round trip) Florence, SC (210 miles, 520 rt) Columbia, SC (132 miles, 262 rt) Charlotte, NC (134 miles, 268 rt) Atlanta, GA (121 miles, 242 rt) People come from all over and this happens all over the country.
    - Workaccount2 4y ago
      People definitely do that, what is misleading is that it's only a tiny percent of those 100k. Most likely live within 25 miles.
      - theshrike79 4y ago
ZoomerCretin 4y ago
>When that gets solved, you’ll see rapid adoption. What we need is not an EV that can drive 400 miles and charge in 5 minutes, but public transportation infrastructure that can ferry you from your home to the massive gathering place and back without you and the other 100,000 attendees needing to drive your own 3 ton vehicles.
- vel0city 4y ago
  If only all the massive gathering places I care to go to were the exact same as my neighbors down the street. Turns out my neighbors next door have relatives the exact opposite direction of where my relatives are and we've got very different hobbies.
  - llampx 4y ago
    Oh, drat. The rest of the world has built exactly one subway line per city and it only runs in one direction.
vel0city 4y ago
I could drive to my alma mater, power a TV off the car all day, and drive home without expending even 15% of my car's battery. Its less of a drive than my wife's commute to work every day, and that's not very far at all. I acknowledge that's probably not even 30% of that crowd, but clearly that'll be some percentage of that 100k. 100k people drive in. All individually in personal vehicles? Most commuting 4 hours away? No. Even if the average occupancy gets to 2, you've massively reduced the energy needs. I really doubt the failures of electric vehicles are because of college football. If that's truly the case I feel really bad about the future of the human race.
theshrike79 4y ago
The problem here is that not all people driving there will need to rapid charge from zero to 100% percent. It's perfectly enough to have rows of 22kW three phase chargers there, during a 2 hour(?) ballgame you get a good 100km of range - enough to take you back home or at least to the nearest rapid charger if you need one. Or you could have rows of 100kW+ chargers with smart load balancing. The CCS connector tells the charger how much battery is left in the car so the load balancer can prioritize cars with less charge dynamically.
llampx 4y ago
Lol, I think this takes the cake for clueless HN comment. Solve college football tailgating because that's what most people in the world REALLY care about!
- brightball 4y ago
  It’s a use case that will affect a large amount of people. Really no different then solving a drive down the coast to Orlando. When every car on the highway has to stop to recharge to do a long drive a 45 minute recharge will bottleneck the entire highway system. The rapid recharge is the key use case to address EV adoption. I’ve owned 3 and I’m speaking from experience.
  - llampx 4y ago
    I've seen a gas station photo advertising $8/gal prices in the LA area. When that goes nationwide, the energy-intensive lifestyle of Americans will come to an end including driving 700 miles to a ball game and towing jet skis around.
    - brightball 4y ago
      From what I remember, anytime the price is consistently over $3 / gallon the Canadian oil sands become cost effective.
  - Workaccount2 4y ago
    Extremely few people drive more than 50 miles to a sporting event. And for the people who are forced to do it because they live in the sticks, there are not enough of them to sway the ship's direction on this.
IanCal 4y ago
> It’s simply not realistic for all those vehicles to need to do 45 minutes of charging. But in your example there are two long periods of time where the cars are stationary, right? They're parked all day while partying and parked all night when they're staying at a hotel. Any pauses in the driving can also come with charging up.
- brightball 4y ago
  Agreed. You just have to have a place for them to charge while they're stationary. I don't know if that's realistic or not.
colinmhayes 4y ago
Ford is selling a gas generator as an e-F150 accessory. A lot of tailgaters come in pickups, and having electricity seems useful, might even be better than status quo.

moralestapia 4y ago

Further elaborating on that, I'd like to see what kind of electrical infra you need to (even partially) charge 20k cars in 5 minutes. That's about one Tsar Bomba of energy.

neon_electro 4y ago
It’s a red herring. We don’t need to do that.
- brightball 4y ago
  This problem specifically is why I keep an eye on the Graphene Aluminum Ion battery technology coming from Graphene Manufacturing Group. Graphene has seemed to be the key to rapid charging while maintaining temperatures for over a decade. The challenge was always getting enough usable graphene at low cost without mining.
philipkglass 4y ago
I'd like to see what kind of electrical infra you need to (even partially) charge 20k cars in 5 minutes. That's about one Tsar Bomba of energy. This is too high by 4 orders of magnitude. 100 kWh is a larger than average battery capacity for a contemporary BEV [1]. That's 2000 MWh for 20,000 vehicles charging from empty (modulo charging inefficiencies). 1 megaton is 4.18 * 10^15 joules or 1,162,000 MWh [2] while the Tsar Bomba had a yield of at least 50 megatons as tested [3]. So charging 20k electric cars from empty requires about 0.003% as much energy as the Tsar Bomba released. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S#Battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S#Battery [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba
- moralestapia 4y ago
  You're right, I jumped from kWh -> TWh, where it should've been kWh -> GWh. Still, if you look at power, that much energy moving in 5 minutes is about 24GW. That's massive. Unless I'm wrong with numbers again :P.

epistasis 4y ago

How many of that 100k are driving 3-4 hours each way? 5 minute charging is a nothing burger. If they are tailgating for hours, they can do normal level 2 and get what they need. 5 minute charging is something that sounds like a good idea if you've never had an electric car, and are used to only charging at very specialized locations that you have to seek out and spend dedicated time at, ie gas stations. But after actually having an electric car, the idea becomes superfluous. Current charging speed is going to be just fine for 99-99.5% of those driving long distance to a football game.

brightball 4y ago
Drive there, drive back and expect to fully recharge at some point on the trip. Most EV ranges I see are in the 300 mile ballpark (currently) which is going to require a full recharge for the round trip. On the day to day with an EV, I agree it’s not a big deal. Travel is a very big deal though.
- theshrike79 4y ago
  ...wait? People drive SIX HUNDRED MILES round trip to watch a college football game?
  - brightball 4y ago
    Just using a drive to Clemson, SC as an example: Charleston, SC (240 miles, 580 round trip) Florence, SC (210 miles, 520 rt) Columbia, SC (132 miles, 262 rt) Charlotte, NC (134 miles, 268 rt) Atlanta, GA (121 miles, 242 rt) People come from all over and this happens all over the country.
  - Workaccount2 4y ago
    People definitely do that, what is misleading is that it's only a tiny percent of those 100k. Most likely live within 25 miles.
    - theshrike79 4y ago

ZoomerCretin 4y ago

>When that gets solved, you’ll see rapid adoption. What we need is not an EV that can drive 400 miles and charge in 5 minutes, but public transportation infrastructure that can ferry you from your home to the massive gathering place and back without you and the other 100,000 attendees needing to drive your own 3 ton vehicles.

vel0city 4y ago
If only all the massive gathering places I care to go to were the exact same as my neighbors down the street. Turns out my neighbors next door have relatives the exact opposite direction of where my relatives are and we've got very different hobbies.
- llampx 4y ago
  Oh, drat. The rest of the world has built exactly one subway line per city and it only runs in one direction.

vel0city 4y ago

I could drive to my alma mater, power a TV off the car all day, and drive home without expending even 15% of my car's battery. Its less of a drive than my wife's commute to work every day, and that's not very far at all. I acknowledge that's probably not even 30% of that crowd, but clearly that'll be some percentage of that 100k. 100k people drive in. All individually in personal vehicles? Most commuting 4 hours away? No. Even if the average occupancy gets to 2, you've massively reduced the energy needs. I really doubt the failures of electric vehicles are because of college football. If that's truly the case I feel really bad about the future of the human race.

theshrike79 4y ago

The problem here is that not all people driving there will need to rapid charge from zero to 100% percent. It's perfectly enough to have rows of 22kW three phase chargers there, during a 2 hour(?) ballgame you get a good 100km of range - enough to take you back home or at least to the nearest rapid charger if you need one. Or you could have rows of 100kW+ chargers with smart load balancing. The CCS connector tells the charger how much battery is left in the car so the load balancer can prioritize cars with less charge dynamically.

llampx 4y ago

Lol, I think this takes the cake for clueless HN comment. Solve college football tailgating because that's what most people in the world REALLY care about!

brightball 4y ago
It’s a use case that will affect a large amount of people. Really no different then solving a drive down the coast to Orlando. When every car on the highway has to stop to recharge to do a long drive a 45 minute recharge will bottleneck the entire highway system. The rapid recharge is the key use case to address EV adoption. I’ve owned 3 and I’m speaking from experience.
- llampx 4y ago
  I've seen a gas station photo advertising $8/gal prices in the LA area. When that goes nationwide, the energy-intensive lifestyle of Americans will come to an end including driving 700 miles to a ball game and towing jet skis around.
  - brightball 4y ago
    From what I remember, anytime the price is consistently over $3 / gallon the Canadian oil sands become cost effective.
- Workaccount2 4y ago
  Extremely few people drive more than 50 miles to a sporting event. And for the people who are forced to do it because they live in the sticks, there are not enough of them to sway the ship's direction on this.

IanCal 4y ago

> It’s simply not realistic for all those vehicles to need to do 45 minutes of charging. But in your example there are two long periods of time where the cars are stationary, right? They're parked all day while partying and parked all night when they're staying at a hotel. Any pauses in the driving can also come with charging up.

brightball 4y ago
Agreed. You just have to have a place for them to charge while they're stationary. I don't know if that's realistic or not.

colinmhayes 4y ago

Ford is selling a gas generator as an e-F150 accessory. A lot of tailgaters come in pickups, and having electricity seems useful, might even be better than status quo.