There are already some charging stations in Germany offering 400kW. Still 16 minutes though. 800kW is just insane. CCS is currently capped at 500kW, so you would need MCS which is planned for trucks.
I would love to see the average person try to pick up and drag the cable required to transfer 800kw given how thick it would have to be. The 350kw ones are already a struggle for my aging family members.
Also lots of people who drive ICE don’t understand that the future is not 150kwh mega batteries but smaller lighter more energy dense storage solutions (like petrol is lol)
I drive 40+ miles for work a day and only use 15kwh. It’ll actually be cheaper and more effecient for me to have a smaller battery which has a lower weight. These new “long range” cars will cost more to run if still lithium ion
For the odd long distance trip I do my car can do 3h at motorway speeds for a 15-25min charge, my old ass bladder can last 2h max.
We don’t need more range or faster chargers. We need to start using renewable materials
Urban probably isn’t too bad, if it’s a proper city they already have power for the infrastructure of subways, lighting, and large buildings.
Where it’s going to be tough is putting these in the ‘burbs or the large areas of mostly vacant interstate. There’s just no infrastructure for them to build off of, and EV charging infrastructure is already one of the issues holding people back from more widely adopting them.
Many rural areas honestly would not be too bad since power plants are usually out there. Those generally tend to have pretty decent power infrastructure. It might be different in other states though. Here in Washington dams and wind farms tend to be pretty far out of town.
Yeah, just the random added load equivalent to 80-100 houses per car, any time between 5am and 9pm would be enough to send local suburban grids into a spin, especially in summer evenings when there’s peak loading already underway. A lot of infrastructure would need to be beefed up to make it reliable.
We have an EV that charges on 110v current. It’s not fast, but plugged in the previous evening it will be ready to go by morning. Not a huge draw on the grid off household current. Obviously, just like you point out, more EV will increase demand…but charging off 110v overnight isn’t going to be as demanding as a “gas station” for EV that all want fast charge for people that maybe don’t have charging access otherwise.
I imagine there would have to be some sort of organized system to pick charging time slots via the local electricity provider in order to keep the grid stable. EV owners could certainly get an electrical timer or via the EV manufacturer app to set a charging time.
Yeah if you’ve got home charging it’s not a real issue. We use 240v here in Aus so you can pull quite a bit out of domestic outlets before having to get serious and generally overnight charging to top up the day’s commute would be fine.
So it wouldn’t be a fast charger on every street, and you could always enforce limits by time of use pricing to put a dampener on peak loads.
I just wonder if utility planners might get caught with their pants down on this one. Like, could you say 5 years ago chargers might run to 800kW?
I’d say grid planners everywhere are under serious strain. The demands for air conditioning in public and private spaces are getting higher, the number of household electronics is climbing along with data centers constantly consuming ever more amounts of electricity…now we add EV charging to the mix.
If you do the math, the common standard plugs simply can’t do the charging rates that would be required here. You’d need a whole new plug design on top of all new chargers.
It’s also silly and unnecessary. We should focus on getting more chargers out there, not chasing a fast charge time goal. If you plan your route out a bit, 20-30 minute charge times every 2-4 hours are fine for the vast majority of people.
There are already some charging stations in Germany offering 400kW. Still 16 minutes though. 800kW is just insane. CCS is currently capped at 500kW, so you would need MCS which is planned for trucks.
I would love to see the average person try to pick up and drag the cable required to transfer 800kw given how thick it would have to be. The 350kw ones are already a struggle for my aging family members.
Also lots of people who drive ICE don’t understand that the future is not 150kwh mega batteries but smaller lighter more energy dense storage solutions (like petrol is lol)
I drive 40+ miles for work a day and only use 15kwh. It’ll actually be cheaper and more effecient for me to have a smaller battery which has a lower weight. These new “long range” cars will cost more to run if still lithium ion
For the odd long distance trip I do my car can do 3h at motorway speeds for a 15-25min charge, my old ass bladder can last 2h max.
We don’t need more range or faster chargers. We need to start using renewable materials
Fucking hell, imagine the requirement of a couple of megawatt substation for fast charging, urban power planners must be shitting themselves.
Urban probably isn’t too bad, if it’s a proper city they already have power for the infrastructure of subways, lighting, and large buildings.
Where it’s going to be tough is putting these in the ‘burbs or the large areas of mostly vacant interstate. There’s just no infrastructure for them to build off of, and EV charging infrastructure is already one of the issues holding people back from more widely adopting them.
Many rural areas honestly would not be too bad since power plants are usually out there. Those generally tend to have pretty decent power infrastructure. It might be different in other states though. Here in Washington dams and wind farms tend to be pretty far out of town.
Yeah, just the random added load equivalent to 80-100 houses per car, any time between 5am and 9pm would be enough to send local suburban grids into a spin, especially in summer evenings when there’s peak loading already underway. A lot of infrastructure would need to be beefed up to make it reliable.
We have an EV that charges on 110v current. It’s not fast, but plugged in the previous evening it will be ready to go by morning. Not a huge draw on the grid off household current. Obviously, just like you point out, more EV will increase demand…but charging off 110v overnight isn’t going to be as demanding as a “gas station” for EV that all want fast charge for people that maybe don’t have charging access otherwise.
I imagine there would have to be some sort of organized system to pick charging time slots via the local electricity provider in order to keep the grid stable. EV owners could certainly get an electrical timer or via the EV manufacturer app to set a charging time.
Yeah if you’ve got home charging it’s not a real issue. We use 240v here in Aus so you can pull quite a bit out of domestic outlets before having to get serious and generally overnight charging to top up the day’s commute would be fine.
So it wouldn’t be a fast charger on every street, and you could always enforce limits by time of use pricing to put a dampener on peak loads.
I just wonder if utility planners might get caught with their pants down on this one. Like, could you say 5 years ago chargers might run to 800kW?
I’d say grid planners everywhere are under serious strain. The demands for air conditioning in public and private spaces are getting higher, the number of household electronics is climbing along with data centers constantly consuming ever more amounts of electricity…now we add EV charging to the mix.
Yeah, I’d say they haven’t been able to keep up.
If you do the math, the common standard plugs simply can’t do the charging rates that would be required here. You’d need a whole new plug design on top of all new chargers.
It’s also silly and unnecessary. We should focus on getting more chargers out there, not chasing a fast charge time goal. If you plan your route out a bit, 20-30 minute charge times every 2-4 hours are fine for the vast majority of people.
https://wumpus-cave.net/post/2024/03/2024-03-30-ten-minute-ev-charging-wont-happen/index.html