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In a vehicle, "fast charging" is not just convenience, it means you can use a smaller, _lighter_ battery having less autonomy but knowing that you can refill i

In a vehicle, "fast charging" is not just convenience, it means you can use a smaller, _lighter_ battery having less autonomy but knowing that you can refill it in a few minutes stop. It doesn't make range anxiety go away completely but it makes long trips practical.

system2 3y ago
Not necessarily. You must have those fast chargers conveniently placed on your route. I can't even imagine going to Vegas from LA with an electric car currently.
- RandallBrown 3y ago
  LA to Vegas is about 270 miles, which is under the 333 mile estimated range of a Tesla Model 3. I'm sure under normal conditions, 270 miles would be cutting it pretty close, if it even makes it there at all. Luckily there are 10 supercharges along the way. Not sure how it is for non-teslas, but I'm guessing at least a few of those places with superchargers also have chargers that will work with other kinds of cars.
  - sroussey 3y ago
    There are not so many and the chances of them working are a coin flip. Driving through the desert on an open road is not conducive to efficiency. It’s hot, need AC blasting. It’s an open road—drive fast! (Or it’s bumper to bumper for 10 hours).
  - mlhpdx 3y ago
    Think about what that means as to a practical limit, today. How many cars per day can make that trip assuming they have to recharge once along the way? It’s far from a solved problem even on that route. I love electric cars. I’ve been drawing pictures of them thinking about them and waiting for them for a long time. And, I am very grateful for those that made them a reality. That said, I’m also pragmatic. Where we are today versus where we need to be to make them practical for a large portion of the population is sublime.
    - pinkgolem 3y ago
      Each Tesla charging station has anywhere between 10 and 30 ports, so you can charge around 200 cars at the same time, let's say each takes 30 minutes(rather on the high side, 15-20 is more likely) and we have 10 active drive hours. That makes around 4k can be charged on route, more realistic it's above 10k already.. and that's only Tesla. Growing pains happen, but I drove my M3 across EU multiple times.. and needed to wait for a charger once, for 3 minutes.
      - mlhpdx 3y ago
        People generally travel at daylight hours, so it’s actually about a third of that. And, worse, people generally travel at peak hours. Again, reality.
        pinkgolem 3y ago
        There are 3 1/3 daylight hours? Where exactly is this peak on a 3-4 hour drive where everyone starts with different percentages/takes break at different point in time and software optimizes to avoid overloaded stations automatically?
- lazide 3y ago
  If it’s impossible to charge the battery in less than 30 minutes, that changes the dynamics of charging a lot.
- speed_spread 3y ago
  Exactly. But if two ten minute stops in Barstow and Baker was all it took to make it possible with a cheaper electric car, a lot more people would consider it. Anyway you'll need to stop for a piss.
  - kposehn 3y ago
    As another commenter pointed out, LA to LV is actually doable with a number of current on sale EVs, with a decent size range buffer left behind after the trip. Furthermore, there are several fast chargers on the route in Hesperia, Barstow and Baker.
- IntelMiner 3y ago
  You must have gas stations conveniently placed on your route. I can't even imagine going to Vegas from LA without a horse and buggy currently The last part felt a little mean-spirited in retrospect. But my intention was to point out that you're just describing a lack of infrastructure yet Once we build this stuff it's *there for use* and just has the usual burdens of maintenance. Arguably less since we don't need to transport big trucks full of oil to it regularly
  - lazide 3y ago
    Sure, but complaining that someone is noticing the real infrastructure issues doesn’t mean they don’t exist right now? Not everyone wants to bleed so they can be on the bleeding edge.
    - jandrese 3y ago
      There is no lack of charging infrastructure between LA and LV. https://supercharge.info/map https://supercharge.info/map If you were talking about LA to La Paz then there is a real concern about making it, but LA to LV is no problem at all.
- denysvitali 3y ago
  I did a whole trip from SF, national parks, Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Diego, LA, and back to SF in an electric car (Tesla Model Y). This was ~3 weeks ago. No issues whatsoever. https://ibb.co/b6N7bdp https://ibb.co/b6N7bdp
Animats 3y ago
The big advantage of fast charging is that charging stations are smaller. With hours-long charging, everyone needs a parking place with a charger. With 20-30 minute charging, you need a big lot with parking stalls and something for people to do for 20-30 minutes. With 10 minute charging, you're almost at gas station throughput. With 5 minute charging, you're at gas station throughput levels. As I wrote a few days ago, once charging is below 10 minutes, charging stations work just like gas stations in terms of throughput. We will see gas stations converting directly from gas pumps to chargers. (Unclear if gas pumps can coexist near high-powered chargers; gasoline vapor and high voltage electricity should not be in the same space.)
- einpoklum 3y ago
  For gas-station throughput, you need replaceable batteries which you trade at the station, or 3-minute charging. With 10 minutes you still need that parking lot and something better than your typical mini convenience store. But - it does go a long way, for sure: 10 minutes is something you're willing to just accept as a stop along your way, while 30 minutes is something that you would try to plan in advance.
  - logtempo 3y ago
    From a logistic point of view, replaceable batteries is a nightmare to manage.
    - Animats 3y ago
      It's been tried. See Better Place.[1] Battery swapping was a bet against better batteries. Even in Israel and Hawaii, where you can't drive very far, it was a losing idea. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_%28company%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_%28company%29
      - Animats 3y ago
        Nio, in China, has revisited this, successfully.[1] They have about 2000 battery swap stations and claim to have done 30,000,000 battery swaps so far. They have a few demo stations in Europe. The idea is to use smaller batteries for cheaper and lighter cars. Range is less but batteries are swappable for long trips. [1] https://electrek.co/2023/11/21/nio-is-joining-forces-with-a-major-oem-for-ev-battery-swapping/ https://electrek.co/2023/11/21/nio-is-joining-forces-with-a-...
hhsectech 3y ago
Hate to be that pragmatic engineer...but wouldn't a decent balance between range and fast charging be nicer? I'd like to see the graph for capacity vs charging time for these cells. I'm sure like any battery the charging gets slower over time as the battery warms up, so finding the sweet spot would be nice. I'd quite like to buy an electric car and select an appropriate power bank based on this. Also, why do the packs have to be permanent? Why not have the ability to add or remove modular cells as and when needed? Just add the capacity when you need it. Plug the unused cells into your solar array when you aren't using them. That opens up a few options. Firstly, you can choose to power your house or your car, or of you need to get to work and you forgot to charge, you take the dead cells out and swap a fully charged set in. Leave the dead ones charging at home. Have a modular system where battery swapping is possible doesnt seem to be a system that EV manufacturers have considered for some reason.
fransje26 3y ago
It's a perfectly good tradeoff, absolutely. Even more so because the sodium-ion batteries run cool, contrary to the the Li-ions, meaning that their installed energy-density is a lot closer to their theoretical energy density, which is not the case for Li-ions.

system2 3y ago

Not necessarily. You must have those fast chargers conveniently placed on your route. I can't even imagine going to Vegas from LA with an electric car currently.

RandallBrown 3y ago
LA to Vegas is about 270 miles, which is under the 333 mile estimated range of a Tesla Model 3. I'm sure under normal conditions, 270 miles would be cutting it pretty close, if it even makes it there at all. Luckily there are 10 supercharges along the way. Not sure how it is for non-teslas, but I'm guessing at least a few of those places with superchargers also have chargers that will work with other kinds of cars.
- sroussey 3y ago
  There are not so many and the chances of them working are a coin flip. Driving through the desert on an open road is not conducive to efficiency. It’s hot, need AC blasting. It’s an open road—drive fast! (Or it’s bumper to bumper for 10 hours).
- mlhpdx 3y ago
  Think about what that means as to a practical limit, today. How many cars per day can make that trip assuming they have to recharge once along the way? It’s far from a solved problem even on that route. I love electric cars. I’ve been drawing pictures of them thinking about them and waiting for them for a long time. And, I am very grateful for those that made them a reality. That said, I’m also pragmatic. Where we are today versus where we need to be to make them practical for a large portion of the population is sublime.
  - pinkgolem 3y ago
    Each Tesla charging station has anywhere between 10 and 30 ports, so you can charge around 200 cars at the same time, let's say each takes 30 minutes(rather on the high side, 15-20 is more likely) and we have 10 active drive hours. That makes around 4k can be charged on route, more realistic it's above 10k already.. and that's only Tesla. Growing pains happen, but I drove my M3 across EU multiple times.. and needed to wait for a charger once, for 3 minutes.
    - mlhpdx 3y ago
      People generally travel at daylight hours, so it’s actually about a third of that. And, worse, people generally travel at peak hours. Again, reality.
      - pinkgolem 3y ago
        There are 3 1/3 daylight hours? Where exactly is this peak on a 3-4 hour drive where everyone starts with different percentages/takes break at different point in time and software optimizes to avoid overloaded stations automatically?
lazide 3y ago
If it’s impossible to charge the battery in less than 30 minutes, that changes the dynamics of charging a lot.
speed_spread 3y ago
Exactly. But if two ten minute stops in Barstow and Baker was all it took to make it possible with a cheaper electric car, a lot more people would consider it. Anyway you'll need to stop for a piss.
- kposehn 3y ago
  As another commenter pointed out, LA to LV is actually doable with a number of current on sale EVs, with a decent size range buffer left behind after the trip. Furthermore, there are several fast chargers on the route in Hesperia, Barstow and Baker.
IntelMiner 3y ago
You must have gas stations conveniently placed on your route. I can't even imagine going to Vegas from LA without a horse and buggy currently The last part felt a little mean-spirited in retrospect. But my intention was to point out that you're just describing a lack of infrastructure yet Once we build this stuff it's *there for use* and just has the usual burdens of maintenance. Arguably less since we don't need to transport big trucks full of oil to it regularly
- lazide 3y ago
  Sure, but complaining that someone is noticing the real infrastructure issues doesn’t mean they don’t exist right now? Not everyone wants to bleed so they can be on the bleeding edge.
  - jandrese 3y ago
    There is no lack of charging infrastructure between LA and LV. https://supercharge.info/map https://supercharge.info/map If you were talking about LA to La Paz then there is a real concern about making it, but LA to LV is no problem at all.
denysvitali 3y ago
I did a whole trip from SF, national parks, Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Diego, LA, and back to SF in an electric car (Tesla Model Y). This was ~3 weeks ago. No issues whatsoever. https://ibb.co/b6N7bdp https://ibb.co/b6N7bdp

Animats 3y ago

The big advantage of fast charging is that charging stations are smaller. With hours-long charging, everyone needs a parking place with a charger. With 20-30 minute charging, you need a big lot with parking stalls and something for people to do for 20-30 minutes. With 10 minute charging, you're almost at gas station throughput. With 5 minute charging, you're at gas station throughput levels. As I wrote a few days ago, once charging is below 10 minutes, charging stations work just like gas stations in terms of throughput. We will see gas stations converting directly from gas pumps to chargers. (Unclear if gas pumps can coexist near high-powered chargers; gasoline vapor and high voltage electricity should not be in the same space.)

einpoklum 3y ago
For gas-station throughput, you need replaceable batteries which you trade at the station, or 3-minute charging. With 10 minutes you still need that parking lot and something better than your typical mini convenience store. But - it does go a long way, for sure: 10 minutes is something you're willing to just accept as a stop along your way, while 30 minutes is something that you would try to plan in advance.
- logtempo 3y ago
  From a logistic point of view, replaceable batteries is a nightmare to manage.
  - Animats 3y ago
    It's been tried. See Better Place.[1] Battery swapping was a bet against better batteries. Even in Israel and Hawaii, where you can't drive very far, it was a losing idea. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_%28company%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_%28company%29
    - Animats 3y ago
      Nio, in China, has revisited this, successfully.[1] They have about 2000 battery swap stations and claim to have done 30,000,000 battery swaps so far. They have a few demo stations in Europe. The idea is to use smaller batteries for cheaper and lighter cars. Range is less but batteries are swappable for long trips. [1] https://electrek.co/2023/11/21/nio-is-joining-forces-with-a-major-oem-for-ev-battery-swapping/ https://electrek.co/2023/11/21/nio-is-joining-forces-with-a-...

hhsectech 3y ago

Hate to be that pragmatic engineer...but wouldn't a decent balance between range and fast charging be nicer? I'd like to see the graph for capacity vs charging time for these cells. I'm sure like any battery the charging gets slower over time as the battery warms up, so finding the sweet spot would be nice. I'd quite like to buy an electric car and select an appropriate power bank based on this. Also, why do the packs have to be permanent? Why not have the ability to add or remove modular cells as and when needed? Just add the capacity when you need it. Plug the unused cells into your solar array when you aren't using them. That opens up a few options. Firstly, you can choose to power your house or your car, or of you need to get to work and you forgot to charge, you take the dead cells out and swap a fully charged set in. Leave the dead ones charging at home. Have a modular system where battery swapping is possible doesnt seem to be a system that EV manufacturers have considered for some reason.

fransje26 3y ago

It's a perfectly good tradeoff, absolutely. Even more so because the sodium-ion batteries run cool, contrary to the the Li-ions, meaning that their installed energy-density is a lot closer to their theoretical energy density, which is not the case for Li-ions.