Japan To Standardize Electric Vehicle Chargers

JoshuaInNippon writes "Four major Japanese car manufacturers and one power company (Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota, and Tokyo Electric) have teamed up with over 150 business and government entities in Japan to form a group to promote standardization in electric vehicle chargers and charging stations. The group hopes to leverage current Japanese electric vehicle technology and spread standardization throughout the country, as well as aim towards worldwide acceptance of their standardized charger model. In a very Japanese manner, the group has decided to call themselves 'CHAdeMO,' a play on the English words 'charge' and 'move,' as well as a Japanese pun that encourages tea-drinking while waiting the 15+ minutes it will take to charge one's vehicle battery."

Comments

Quick

[ArsonSmith]

We Americans need to come up with our own, incompatible, standard for charging vehicles.

Re:Quick

[Evelas]

and puns, we can't let the Japanese be beating us on puns.

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[sakdoctor]

USB

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[Anonymous Coward]

We will sponsor a new standard with our Chinese allies. We shall dub it, "CHAD" Chinese hatred, American domination.

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[interkin3tic]

Chargedonaygo. You've got charge, go, and chardonay, one of many alcoholic beverages you'll be able to drink and then sober up before your car is done charging since I have a hunch that our friendly oil industry lobbyist friends might make sure we're safe by limiting the amount of power that can be transferred.

Also because it will probably take much more time to charge the latest electric assault vehicle. Just because we're going to go electric doesn't mean we're going to lose our love of ridiculously huge and overpowered cars for the 20 minute commute on the freeway. After all, one of these days, we might have to drive over a mountain. We'll definitely want the eCanyonaro for that day.

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[Kratisto]

We need better education systems for our children to foster American puns so that we can compete with European and Asian puns.

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[jimbolauski]

How many cars are driven in both Japan and the USA, it's not a big problem, If Japan can handle half the country at 50hz and half the country at 60hz I'm sure the 3 or 4 cars made for the US standard will be able to get an adapter to handle Japanese recharging stations.

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[natehoy]

So I can charge my car from my laptop, then? Brilliant!

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[pandrijeczko]

I have a great one for you:

"WITNESS"

or

"Where Is The Nearest Electronics Super Store" on the basis you will need to buy some kind of adapter so the charger fits your car.

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[ashitaka]

Not a chance.

Japanese has many homynyms making puns a breeze.

A family on a TV show had a pet turtle that liked to chase their dachsund around the house.

Turtle in Japanese is "Kame" (pronounced "ka-meh").

The turtle's name was "Diji".

So they had "Diji Kame". (=Digital Camera)

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[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

You sickening, worthless, un-American, communist. America should let the free market come up with at least 3 competing, mutually incompatible charging standards. Each with its own DRM system to prevent nimbler third parties from offering cheaper alternatives! Ideally, chargers shouldn't even be interoperable between vehicle lines produced by the same company.

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[pandrijeczko]

I know it takes all types to make a world but, I'm sorry, you Japanese are just plain "weird"... and, yes, I am referring to Takeshi's Castle.

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[poetmatt]

Why would they even need to bother? Our voltages aren't even the same.

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[Cyberax]

Actually, you already have one: SAE J1772 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772 ).

Which is going to be used in GM Volt and Nissan Leaf.

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[fracai]

I see your Takeshi's Castle and raise you Wipeout and Minute to Win It.

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[CheeseTroll]

And then charge your laptop from the car's 12v outlet!

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[$RANDOMLUSER]

You're pretty un-American yourself. You forgot to mention that the incompatible plugs must be heavily patented to avoid the possibility of adapters and covered with safety stickers saying stuff like "DO NOT PUT IN BABY'S MOUTH".

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[Anonymous Coward]

So I can charge my car from my laptop, then? Brilliant!

Especially since I power my laptop from my car's 12-volt outlet! Perpetual motion, here I come!

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[Capt.DrumkenBum]

You should patent this idea and sell it to the North American auto makers. You are probably too late though.

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[cayenne8]

"Just because we're going to go electric doesn't mean we're going to lose our love of ridiculously huge and overpowered cars for the 20 minute commute on the freeway. "

I dunno about "huge", but I gotta say...a corvette or turbo porsche sure has a way of making even a 10 minute drive a LOT of fun.

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[Sponge Bath]

You've discovered the preposterous motion machine!

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[rwa2]

20 minute commute? What metropolitan area to you live in? Everyone I know drives for at least an hour, sometimes up to 2 hours each way in traffic.

And all for cheap housing. If we could somehow migrate away from suburban and exurban sprawl and actually create large, comfortable urban lodging for families close to work, it'd be no problem to own big landlubber vehicles so you can have your weekend fun out in West Virginia... you'd probably save more gas by living closer to work than by buying extra fuel efficient cars for every family member.

But this is America... we're more in love with our cars than the place where we live, I guess.

/ moved next to a subway station and got rid of the 2nd car // then found another nice job close to home and didn't even need the subway station anymore

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[vlm]

We Americans need to come up with our own, incompatible, standard for charging vehicles.

No problem dude we already have at least two incompatible charger standards.

SAE J1772 and IEC 62196

The SAE standard is supported by all the domestic manufacturers, AND THE JAPANESE whom supposedly, according to the article, want yet another standard. Probably SONY wants a battery charger with a root kit or something like that.

The IEC standard, which apparently no one wants to use, is basically the SAE on steroids with a bunch more control/DRM pins.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772

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[K. S. Kyosuke]

America should let the free market come up with at least 3 competing, mutually incompatible charging standards.

After all, as Grace Hopper would say, the wonderful thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.

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[pandrijeczko]

Yep, they've done Wipeout here in the UK also - I should have figured it was Japanese-inspired all on my own.

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[Michael Kristopeit]

We Americans need to come up with our own, incompatible, standard for charging vehicles.

i'm sure apple and sony are already on it

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[H0p313ss]

We Americans need to come up with our own, incompatible, standard for charging vehicles.

No problem dude we already have at least two incompatible charger standards.

SAE J1772 and IEC 62196

For every standard there is an equal, and opposite, standard?

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[natehoy]

Not at all. We hook up a generator and use the motion of Galileo and Liebniz spinning in their graves for power.

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[commodore64_love]

>>>create large, comfortable urban lodging for families close to work

Live in the concrete hell that is a modern American city? No. I'd probably have an attack of claustrophobia. Also your concept of "large" is incompatible with having to squeeze those ~15 million ex-suburbanites into the small area a city occupies. You'd be left with homes about the size of one dorm per family (like in Asimov's Caves of Steel).

Now maybe if you moved the workplaces to the suburbs, rather than concentrating them all inside the city, you could find a solution. I've never understood why all companies want to locate themselves in Baltimore when there's plenty of room in nearby Frederick or Bel Air or Annapolis.

I'd be willing to live in any of those towns.

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[commodore64_love]

My dad thinks an electric car could be powered by tying a generator to the wheels, and therefore never need to charge the battery, because the spinning wheels would keep it charged.

I wasted about a half hour of my life explaining why this won't work (because more energy is used moving the car than recovered by the wheel-generators), but when he started getting angry and insisting it's a conspiracy by the oil companies, I decided I'd had enough. Let the idiot continue to believe stupid stuff. Or put another way: Let sleeping dragons lie.

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[peragrin]

The average commute in Rochester NY is 20 minutes for 750 thousand people. Mine is 15 minutes without snow. I work inside city limits, and live in a relative country setting. Once you get outside the major cities commutes fall pretty quickly.

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[commodore64_love]

>>>America should let the free market come up with at least 3 competing, mutually incompatible charging standards

How do you think America came-up with standardized electric plugs today? Or firehose connections? Or timezones? It wasn't via government mandate, but by voluntary association between companies to make their systems compatible.

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[twistedsymphony]

and puns, we can't let the Japanese be beating us on puns.

You mean Acronyms?

reading this I can't help but think of JAMMA which is the standard interface for arcade main boards. It was decided upon by a group of Japanese arcade manufacturers and quickly became the world wide standard. Though it really only lasted until the standard upright arcade machine was replaced by ridiculous simulators that didn't fit into the JAMMA design anymore.

it's nice though, I can turn my Mortal Kombat arcade machine into Double Dragon without having to re-wire anything, it's all plug and play.

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[Curien]

>20 minute commute? What metropolitan area to you live in?

I live in a city with 1 million people, and my commute is under 20 minutes. Ten of those minutes are spent driving through the campus at 20 mph.

I used to live in a city with a metro population of 2 million (and huge traffic problems, due to it being on a peninsula with two bridges -- no, not San Francisco, but the traffic patterns were similar), and I had a 15 minute commute.

Living far from work is a choice, one which I choose not to make. You can, too.

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[jimbolauski]

The communist way would be much better people waiting in long lines to use the only recharge station because nobody is motivated to innovate except for the threat of the trips to the gulag, I mean reeducation camp, wait no work camp.

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[commodore64_love]

>>>you'll be able to drink and then sober up before your car is done charging since I have a hunch that our friendly oil industry lobbyist friends might make sure we're safe by limiting the amount of power
>>>

Power is usually limited so that the battery does not blowup. Batteries like to be slow-charged at 1/10th C over several hours. Faster charging will work, but it typically damages the internal components and causes premature death, while the "15 minute" charging suggested by the article would make most batteries explode.

Which makes me wonder - How on earth did the Japanese develop 15 minute charging? That's a LOT of energy to dump into a car.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure why this is modded funny, I imagine we'll do exactly that.

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[JWSmythe]

Don't forget about the similarly powered vehicles. GM had the Camaro SS and Firebird TransAm WS/6, both similar in power, weight, and handling characteristics to the Corvette. The biggest difference (at least to me) was that the F-bodies have 4 seats, and cupholders. :)

    I think he was probably referring to the soccer moms in their F650, EM-50, or Knight XV.

    [/me goes looking for a place to test drive the Knight XV]

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[HeckRuler]

Well I dunno what it's like on the coast, but it's really tempting to move to Chicago (or the suburbs thereof) because that's where all the jobs are. I imagine that all the jobs are there because a lot of programmers live around Chicago, for some inexplicable reason...

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[davester666]

In the name of capitalism, the market must be left to sort this out over time. Therefore, each of the major car manufacturers must come up with their own unique charging system, which will just happen to be incompatible with each other. And each charging station and car will have an authentication mechanism to ensure you are using a properly licensed car to match the charger [and vice versa].

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[Mindcontrolled]

[/me goes looking for a place to test drive the Knight XV]

Bonneville Salt Flats, I guess. Where else will you find enough clearance for that... thing. Can't help myself to like it in all its monstrosity, though.

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[mrsquid0]

Wrong.

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[general_re]

I've never understood why all companies want to locate themselves in Baltimore when there's plenty of room in nearby Frederick or Bel Air or Annapolis.

I'd be willing to live in any of those towns.

Putting the office in Frederick a great idea if your workers live in Frederick, but for those who live in Aberdeen, it's not so hot.

The reason for opening up shop in the city is because it's centrally located, and hence equally inconvenient for everyone :)

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[JWSmythe]

    Too late, they're the basis of my first ZPM. Don't know what I'll do for future ones though. People get all pissy when you go around digging up bodies and using them in scientific applications.

    I was trying to assemble a zombie army. It sounds like fun, but all that digging is a lot of work, and they've improved the security at the morgues.

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[natehoy]

Man, you've got a lot to learn about the benefits of a zombie army. Didn't your starter kit come with an instruction manual? RTFM, man!

Send your zombies to collect more bodies. They don't tire out.

Plus, they don't set off heat-sensitive security gear like the living do, and if there are any security guards they can just be added to your army once the zombies take 'em out.

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[theqmann]

Maybe they quick charge a supercapacitor, and then let the supercap slow charge the battery?

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[ross.w]

Gotta disagree here. While I've never owned a Porsche or a Corvette, I have owned a big bore sports motorcycle with similar or better performance.

Sure it was fun for a while, but the need to watch the speedo everywhere I went to keep my license wore thin. It was frustrating to have so much power on tap and never being able to use it. The only plus in traffic was that lane changing was "point and shoot".

Compare/Contrast with my Honda CB200 that was small, light and nimble, but you needed to use what power it had to keep up with the traffic. Now that was fun!

Back on topic - a small electric vehicle with responsive brakes and steering and maximum torque available from zero up has the potential to be a lot of fun - even in traffic.

As long as it has enough charge to get to work and back.

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[JWSmythe]

    You forgot to mention the competing standards.

    IEC 62196

    Magne Charge (EV1, EV S-10, Toyota Rav4 EV) [depreciated]

    AVCON, and Avcon EVII ICS-200 (Honda EV Plus, Ford Ranger EV)

    I'd be confident there are probably more official ones, and probably even more by individuals doing homebuilds.

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[OnePumpChump]

If Tesla follows the lead of that one Tesla owner and starts installing charging stations around the country, they could still win (in the US at least, which could help give them the rest of the world) and own the standard.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Because he's wrong?

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[jimwelch]

My rush hour is from 5:00 to 5:05. Small Town of 35,000. Large City is 30-45 mins for major shopping trip. We have a handfull that use a bicycle during the good weather. Company has showers and lockers!

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[gestalt_n_pepper]

Ha! You pinkos! I bet you want ALL charging systems to work on 60 cps 120 volt AC current. At least one of them should only be straight 36 amp DC current and the other should actually *mix* AC and DC on the same line, thus working against itself during each AC cycle. By golly, not *THAT'S* American!

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[X0563511]

Indeed - looks nice.

Note this isn't intended for normal public use. The armor (and 300,000 price tag) seem to indicate government official and/or druglord usage.

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[X0563511]

I live about 15-30m from Tampa, within 500 feet of the ocean, and pay $800/m for a two-bed apartment (with plenty of room).

Then again, this is Florida.

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[Enigma2175]

Power is usually limited so that the battery does not blowup. Batteries like to be slow-charged at 1/10th C over several hours. Faster charging will work, but it typically damages the internal components and causes premature death, while the "15 minute" charging suggested by the article would make most batteries explode.

Which makes me wonder - How on earth did the Japanese develop 15 minute charging? That's a LOT of energy to dump into a car.

Most of the fast vehicle chargers I have seen use a coolant (usually water) that circulates through the battery pack during charging. Batteries can be harmed when charged quickly because charging is not 100% efficient due to the internal resistance of the batteries. The waste energy is heat that is usually just radiated away in a normal slow charge but can build up enough in a fast charge to damage your batteries. Cooling the pack using an external mechanism is perfect for this application. For normal charging you can just plug in the electrical connection, or for quick charging you can have 2 extra coolant lines on the connector to pump away excess heat.

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[Captain Splendid]

centrally located

Yeah, but in the US, it's missing one major component: Decent public transit. Why you'd want to pay more to drive a car for two hours rather than pay a little less to relax for that same time is beyond me, but that's the way it is.

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[RulerOf]

America should let the free market come up with at least 3 competing, mutually incompatible charging standards. Each with its own DRM system to prevent nimbler third parties from offering cheaper alternatives!

LG, Apple, and Motorola are all showing tech demos of their chargers next week, with the trade shows being sponsored by Verizon and AT&T. Rumor has it that the LG charger's locking mechanism will break off sometime before you're finished paying your car loan, Apple's charger is a massive dock connector that's already compatible with a huge range of iCar accessories, and Motorola's charger will be covered under warranty, but any rust on the vehicle's underbody will somehow void the warranty on the charger.

You can, of course, buy an insurance policy for your vehicle, but they'll charge extra for a rental while your new model is air-freighted from China over a period of three weeks. You also have to pay for return shipping.

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[dakameleon]

Actually, Japan and the US are pretty similar - see this map. Most of the world is 220 ~ 240V, while North America & Japan are 110 ~ 120V.

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[John Meacham]

If you had a supercapacitor able to hold as much energy as the battery can in order to slowly recharge it fully. Then why use the battery at all? Just run off the supercap.

However, this may help if you had a whole lot of little recharging stops to give the supercap a boost and let it charge the battery while driving, but that has its own issues and you would still need a supercap of the same order of energy density as a battery.

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[tknd]

Now maybe if you moved the workplaces to the suburbs, rather than concentrating them all inside the city, you could find a solution.

Mixed zoning doesn't work because people can't pickup their houses and move when their company flops or they lose their job. So instead they end up driving ridiculous distances and unpredictable paths in order to keep their family together. It is even worse when a married couple needs to have both adults working. Now they need room for 2 cars, take up 2 commutes, and it will be really unlikely for both people live next to work.

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[JWSmythe]

    Ya, I tried that. It's hard to find good zombie help. They're always bringing back fresh zombies with missing arms and legs. One of them had no legs and was decapitated. What am I going to do with that? I had a zombie that'd drag itself around and kept bumping into things.

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[JWSmythe]

    Ya, I was thinking fat gov't contract. There are also an awful lot of rich people world wide that spend a lot of money on protective vehicles. I knew someone who worked for a guy like that. He spent something like $200k/ea to have Chevy Suburbans armored. After he was done, they couldn't go off road (too heavy, sunk into the dirt), handled like an overloaded dump truck, and could barely get out of their own way. He was just a paranoid rich guy. If this place can get the right reputation, it looks like it will be *the* vehicle to have. That, or the company will go under with a really cool prototype in the owners driveway, and a bunch of angry investors.

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[jonadab]

We already have one. We call it the "gas pump".

HTH.HAND.

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[cayenne8]

"Sure it was fun for a while, but the need to watch the speedo everywhere I went to keep my license wore thin. It was frustrating to have so much power on tap and never being able to use it. The only plus in traffic was that lane changing was "point and shoot"."

I have a big motorcycle for just fun cruising around town, but in a sports car (I've owned both a vette and porsche)...you use a radar detector, and even a CB on the highway, but radar detector is a must in town. I never bother looking at the speedo until it goes off. Also there is a great little app for the iPhone called "Trapster" where people can report cops live and speed and redlight traps.

I drive fast everywhere...always have. I have had performance cars that can handle the g's and stop when needed fast. If you have one, you gotta enjoy it. Every time I fire up my cars...my drive is a fun time.

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[Anonymous Coward]

The armor (and 300,000 price tag) seem to indicate government official and/or druglord usage.

Mod parent Redundant!

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[MokuMokuRyoushi]

Forget that, "Majide" was a lot more fun for me.

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[kimvette]

Wrong.

[Citation Needed]

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[StopKoolaidPoliticsT]

To be fair, Rochester itself is only about 191k people and most of the jobs are out in the suburbs, which is why the mayor is going to great lengths (read spending tens of millions of taxpayers dollars) to move businesses back downtown (see PaeTec and Midtown). Most of the suburbanites and outliers in that population NEVER go downtown during business hours. Further, of the 837k people 16 and older, 287k (34%) don't work.

Is the mean commute time 21 minutes? You bet... but Rochester is a long dead city, a hollow shell of its former self when it peaked in the 1950s, and most people are commuting around the city, not in or through it: Greece to Penfield, Webster to Pittsford, Chili to Henrietta. It's all highway miles and despite them generally only being only 2-3 lanes wide, there just isn't any appreciable traffic most of the time.

Don't get me wrong, the greater Rochester area can be a great place to live, but we're the textbook definition of how NOT to manage a city and its metro region. A lot of that comes down to a state government controlled by a distant, narcissistic, totalitarian city and local governments (especially Rochester and Monroe County) whose dreams of living big are only rivaled by their history of failures and bad decisions.

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[Rich0]

Actually, the Japanese aren't exactly perfect at following international standards, either.

If I'm not mistaken they don't use ordinary GSM (at least, a European I knew couldn't get his cell phone to work there a few years ago), and I think they use a different HDTV standard as well.

The country also has two different power frequencies, and I could never figure out how many digits long the phone numbers were supposed to be since it apparently seems to vary by telco. Granted, neither of these are international standards.

The Japanese tend to push the envelope, which often means they can't wait and see what the standard ends up being.

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[countertrolling]

20 minute commute? What metropolitan area to you live in? Everyone I know drives for at least an hour, sometimes up to 2 hours each way in traffic.

Yeah, but this commute is only three blocks long.

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[countertrolling]

Back on topic - a small electric vehicle with responsive brakes and steering and maximum torque available from zero up has the potential to be a lot of fun - even in traffic.

Got a hundred grand on you?

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[dudpixel]

if only microsoft made cars...

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[Ihmhi]

Yeah, and we need to stop using those namby pamby measurements like Volts and Watts. We need some real American measurements, like Lightning Bolts, Zappers, and Toadsfeet.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Come to Rockville -- Plenty of companies.

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[Anonymous Coward]

BTW. I can fill my car (VW -- German, made in Mexico) in US with a gas on any gas station. America is a communist regime

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[Anonymous Coward]

My dad beleives that you could just install a petrol-fueled electric generator in every electric car. Then there'd be no need to wait 15 minutes for your car to recharge - it would just recharge on-the-fly. Every now and then you'd have to refill the tank with gas, but that's better than sitting around waiting for a battery to charge. If you were really clever, you could probably hook up the car wheels directly to the generator's kinetic motion, bypassing the need to convert kinetic energy into electric energy and back into kinetic energy again.

Only thing is, you'd then need to get countries around the world to adopt some kind of "gas refueling stations". Quite a hurdle indeed.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't we really be plugging in DC to the car anyway? Leave the transformer outside at the charging station and feed it 48V DC or whatever is the best most usable voltage for a car.

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[merreborn]

SAE J1772 maxes out at 16.8 kW according to the wikipedia article you linked. It takes 3.5 hours to charge a tesla roadster at that wattage. If you want to charge your Tesla in 15 minutes, you're gonna need 14 times as much juice.

I can see why the Japanese might not be satisfied with that standard.

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[TheLink]

Japan has different parts of their country on different Hz though ;).

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[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

Living far from work is a choice, one which I choose not to make. You can, too.
Yes, if only the economics of the choice were distance traveled and smug douche-bagness radiated life would be so simple. However, some people with children prefer to live outside of the urban areas where schools are becoming penal facilities.

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[kamapuaa]

Because that would limit the job pool to people who already live in the suburb, or are willing to re-locate just for the job. And depending on the type of business, it would also severely limit the clientele. If the businesses have to get services from other businesses, they'd be limited to the ones in the suburb. Taking your logic even further, maybe businesses should all re-locate to the plains of Montana.

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[paeanblack]

How on earth did the Japanese develop 15 minute charging? That's a LOT of energy to dump into a car.

To put this in perspective of what we are accustomed to:

1 gallon of gas =~ 120MJ
Average gas pump =~ 5-10 gpm

120MJ * 7.5 gpm * (1min/60sec) = 15 Megawatts

To put 15 Megawatts in perspective, the Niagara Falls hydroelectric plant, one of the biggest plants feeding the Eastern Seaboard, pumps out 2.4GW...which is less than the combined power of the gas pumps within a 5-mile radius

Basically, we are used to "charging" our cars really, REALLY fast. Attempting to replicate this performance with electricity is an extremely difficult problem.

Gasoline has two huge advantages over batteries:

1) Safety: untrained users operate quick-connect, megawatt-range power couplers with nearly negligible accident rates. Gasoline is ludicrously safe to handle for its power density.
2) Weight: gasoline doesn't need a oxidizer tank. 1kg of gasoline uses ~3kg of oxidizer. Gas vehicles use air. EVs have to lug both reactants around. In current EVs, ~20-25% of the battery capacity is used solely for storing the energy needed to transport the batteries, compared to about 1-2% for gasoline.

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[BlackCreek]

20 minute commute? What metropolitan area to you live in? Everyone I know drives for at least an hour, sometimes up to 2 hours each way in traffic.

Dude, I work from home in a multi-million inhabitant city. On a slow day t takes me 15 seconds from the kitchen to the office. (true story)

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[commodore64_love]

Perhaps this is why "they" are pushing Fuel Cell Cars. They have all the advantages of a gasoline-fueled vehicle (quick recharge == unlimited range).

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[commodore64_love]

No I'm right. The things I mentioned, electrical plugs, standardized fireplugs/conections, and timezones were all developed by *private* standardization groups and other cooperative efforts.

And the U.S. timezones were invented by the railroads for purposes of making train schedules easier-to-follow.

No government was involved.

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[Curien]

>However, some people with children prefer to live outside of the urban areas where schools are becoming penal facilities.

Sure, there are valid reasons for having a long commute; I never implied otherwise.

I also have a child, and I find it's more important to actually spend time with her than to sit in traffic for hours each day. Not to mention that the money saved on gas, insurance, and vehicle maintenance could make a significant dent in the cost of private school tuition.

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[drinkypoo]

Have you been looking at the latest Camaro? It's not an F-body any more, but it did get IRS. Now it looks a whole lot more like a 'Vette, which is good because the IRS was the biggest differentiating factor in the past. I can't justify owning a sports car any more, but wow.

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[SolusSD]

I see what you did here...

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[DarthVain]

Though in all seriousness the amount of cars that are imported/exported say between markets (Japan, Europe, North America, Asia) are small.

Also the plugs are all different in all those places, as are all the voltages.

Hell the steering wheel isn't on the same side.

So having different standards in different market areas isn't really a big deal, and will likely happen anyway as it makes sense.

That said I would rather see a rational standard created that makes sense than one based on a free market... Mostly because the idea of a free market is mostly so much fiction. Particularly now in the auto industry. Seeing as both Canada and USA governments have such a large stake in the industry now, I would rather see a joint government commission decide (given choices from industry) what standard to use in North America.

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[poetmatt]

pretty similar doesn't mean it would work both ways - for a multitude of reasons.

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[ArsonSmith]

see here http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1584918&cid=31501518

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[ncc74656]

20 minute commute? What metropolitan area to you live in?

I can't speak for the OP, but my commute from the southwest edge of town to just north of downtown is about 20 minutes. I live in Las Vegas, which has somewhere around 1.5-2 million people.

Re:Quick

[ross.w]

Thing is though, if there are three lanes moving at 20 mph then that's as fast as you can go, regardless of what you are driving.

Also, Radar detectors are not legal here in Australia (except WA, I think) to prevent just the kind of usage you describe.

Re:Quick

[asaz989]

It's JAPAN, for crying out loud; they *have* no oil industry. Not on the American scale, at least. Instead, they have the giant nuclear-generated electricity industry. The political calculus is a bit different.

Re:Quick

[cayenne8]

"Thing is though, if there are three lanes moving at 20 mph then that's as fast as you can go, regardless of what you are driving."

I seldom if ever run into that type situation, only happens on rush hour times....and I mostly stick to city streets and avoid the highway if I can, it is usually never crowded with traffic...

Re:Quick

[AigariusDebian]

Because the supercap cann't hold the charge for more than a few hours needed to charge the main battery pack?

Re:Quick

[AigariusDebian]

ICEs and all the other mechanical parts of the traditional car have a huge internal friction that can not be overcome. Multiply that by the efficiency of the ICE itself. And then add lower weight and lower center of gravity. An electric car with hub motors only needs a fraction of the power to get the same results, in most cases an electric car can get the same performance with 1/10th of the power usage.

Here is the reference http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/pseudosc/200mpgcar.htm .

Not international?

[Animats]

It should be an international standard. All standard AC power systems offer a voltage around 220V, and the 50Hz/60Hz difference is routinely dealt with today.

Re:Not international?

[s122604]

Its not the voltage and cycle, its the physical dimensions/characteristics of the plug itself.

Designing plugins on the style of the North American and European 220v (respectively based on the car's destination) socket would seem to be fine. Cars sold in Europe don't usually end up in America, and vice-versa...

There are other considerations though: security for one, I suppose some kind of locking/threading mechanism so the local kid (on accident) or local hoodlum (on purpose) can't just stroll by and yank the plug out. I suppose that would be nice if it were standardized, allowing one charging station to charge different makes and models.

It just seems like one of those engineering problems that has probably been already solved by someone, somewhere

Tea?

[Anonymous Coward]

In a very Japanese manner, the group has decided to call themselves 'CHAdeMO,' a play on the English words 'charge' and 'move,' as well as a Japanese pun that encourages tea-drinking while waiting the 15+ minutes it will take to charge one's vehicle battery.

In other news, as the result of a national pride-fueled engineering session, Great Britain has just announced a new car that runs entirely on raw fish and seaweed. There are also unconfirmed reports of a team of people from said country planning an invasion of Japan to, as an anonymous source put it, "take our tea back from those bloody Pocky-eating gits". More on this as it develops.

Re:Tea?

[magus_melchior]

This just in, an east Asian tea consortium responds to activity in Great Britain with a package of prepared C. sinensis leaves and a message reading, "Kindly stop calling this 'your' tea, we've been drinking it for centuries before you started stealing from us."

We Have A Similar Phrase Here In The UK...

[pandrijeczko]

"WaHaBLo".

It's short for "Waving your Hands like a Bloody Loony" at the bored student in the petrol station kiosk in order to divert his attention away from his "Media Studies" course book so he can turn the fuel pump on.

Re:We Have A Similar Phrase Here In The UK...

[RobertLTux]

and i suppose walking up to the kiosk and tapping the window with a one pounds coin would not work??

how about cellphones first?

[egburr]

It sure would be nice if all the cellphone manufacturers would get together and come up with a standard charger. I typically have to replace my phone every 2-3 years, and I like having at least 2 chargers (one at home and one at work), and it really irks me that I have to buy new chargers each time, because the new phones are never compatible with the old chargers, even though they're all from the same manufacturer. And even more annoying is that my wife's phone uses a different charger than mine, so we can't even consolidate there.

Re:how about cellphones first?

[MrEricSir]

They do have a standard:
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/09/10/24/033257/Universal-Phone-Charger-Approved-By-UN-Body

Re:how about cellphones first?

[ircmaxell]

Ummm, actually microUSB has emerged as the "standard"... IIRC, it's actually law in the EU now (I could be wrong here, but I thought I remembered reading about that).

Re:how about cellphones first?

[natehoy]

I went through this for a long time. I'm done.

Many newer phones use a USB-mini or USB-micro port for charging. Not all of them, of course, but you could shop for phones that have it, and vote with your dollars.

My Blackberry uses a USB-mini, which means I can charge it off my laptop, and car chargers are just a few bucks. USB charging capability was also one of the major criteria when we shopped for a new phone for my wife (one of the disqualifying points for an iPhone). Her phone also uses USB-mini. My bluetooth headset uses USB-micro, so I keep an adapter near the charging shelf so I can charge that when I need to off the same adapter. The only oddball device is my wife's iPod Touch.

As a bonus, the USB-mini port allows us to:
  - Connect the phone to computers at the same time the phone is charging, on the same cable. This is both for Internet access (tethering) and for copying music, pictures, etc to and from the phones (USB mass media support on the SD chips we put into the phones).
  - Plug the phone into her car stereo (which has a standard USB port) and, since both phones support mass media (like a USB thumb drive), listen to music from our phones. Also while the phone is charging.

Overall, I'd say next time you shop for a phone, make sure it has a standard connector that can be used for simultaneous power and data. USB's about the only game in that particular town right now, though if you want to go all-Apple the "Apple Connector" might be your chosen standard.

Re:how about cellphones first?

[Anonymous Coward]

They've already settled on Micro-USB as the new standard. Even Apple is on board.

Re:how about cellphones first?

[natehoy]

Yes, and no.

The iPhone can use USB as a power source, but (unless they've added it) it lacks one of the standard USB connectors on the PHONE side.

In other words, I have a charging cable I bought for $5 in my car. One side has a "cigarette lighter" plug, the other has a USB-mini plug that plugs into my phone.

I fully realize it's possible to charge an iPhone over a USB connector, and it's the same connection that provides power (my wife has an iPod Touch). But that requires a special cable - the PHONE side is not USB standard.

I guess you're stupid, ignorant or a bigot.

It is possible to disagree with someone, or attempt to point out some information you think that person might not have, without dropping to the level of insult.

Re:how about cellphones first?

[thatbox]

I assume he was talking about the actual port on the phone body so that charging cables would be compatible across multiple manufacturers and models. Does the iPhone use the iPod connector, or a standard micro- or mini-USB connector?

Re:how about cellphones first?

[idontgno]

Not for one so thoroughly touched by the Reality Distortion Field. I'm afraid the psychosis has run deep, and any attempt to identify a shortcoming or deficiency of an Apple-brand product can only provoke unthinking and violent opposition.

It's like rabies, except we have an immunization for that.

Re:how about cellphones first?

[natehoy]

No, they use a proprietary connector. That doesn't make an iPhone an inappropriate solution for the poster above who complained about nonstandard chargers - he's just have to buy iPhones (and ONLY iPhones) and all of his adapters would be the same.

You could buy the $15 aftermarket Apple-compatible car charger for each car, and at home you could share a single charger.

I don't like having to have a proprietary cable specific to my phone, personally, but the GGGP's telephone charging woes would be significantly mitigated by choosing Apple, all Apple, and only Apple for his phones. At least he'd only have one cable type to deal with, and it probably won't change anytime soon. Plus, there are some car stereos that have the Apple Connector built in.

But there are a lot more places that have a USB port, and I can get a USB-mini pigtail connector for 5/$1 in bulk, replacement wall warts for $4 and car chargers for $5.

Oh, and I can carry a $10 spare battery. ;)

Re:how about cellphones first?

[Hamsterdan]

12v vs 5v (Firewire vs USB). Older iPods could use either 12v or 5V. Now since Apple ditched Firewire, it means that most older devices won't be able to charge newer iPods (and iPhones). Alarm clock, car charger, FM modulator and such. They could've kept 12V on the newer iPods for charging. Now we have to buy new ones. And I'm not even talking about my mini-stereo which is now crippled because of this (can't charge the phone), and I have to kill a popup on the phone that says *this device wasn't bla bla bla*

Yes we need some standards...

Re:how about cellphones first?

[Anonymous Coward]

There was an immunization for the RDF but it involved owning an Amiga.

Re:how about cellphones first?

[dudpixel]

It is possible to disagree with someone, or attempt to point out some information you think that person might not have, without dropping to the level of insult.

you must be new here

Re:how about cellphones first?

[Randle_Revar]

Last I heard they threatened to make a law and the GSMA said, "no, please don't, we'll do it "voluntarily"".

But the plan is only to have "the majority of new mobile phone models" have micro usb by 2012

http://www.gsmworld.com/newsroom/press-releases/2009/2548.htm

Re:how about cellphones first?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude those cables are everywhere, they literally breed at my house and i've never even bought an ipod or a cable. Two dollars will buy you a cable with change, so that seems like a strange criteria for buying or not buying a phone.

I guess i understand if you don't like having extra cables adound though. An iPhone would be awesome to have, i have an ipod touch i got for free and love it.

-S

Re:how about cellphones first?

[JediTrainer]

Funny thing, that. The idea that USB automatically gives me the ability to swap plugs. Then I made a discovery:

I have a TomTom ONE XL, and a Motorola RAZR (yes, it's old). Both have mini USB connectors.

Both will happily charge off the Motorola car adapter. Yet the TomTom adapter will only charge the TomTom (the RAZR will say 'unable to charge' connected to the TomTom cigarette lighter adapter).

Seems that proprietary connectors are still possible if the plug refuses to give the device enough juice, depending on the device. I'm not quite sure how they pulled that off, or whether the TomTom adapter simply doesn't provide the amount of power that the cell phone is requesting. Maybe someone who knows something about these plugs could comment?

Re:how about cellphones first?

[natehoy]

Verizon (or at least a CDMA carrier) right?

My wife had a Verizon RAZR, and we discovered the same thing. The CDMA variant of the RAZR actually uses a nonstandard USB charger - it needs more power than the 2.5W (5V @ .5A) the USB standard can provide.

So, technically, the phone uses a USB shaped plug, and even the recommended USB voltage, but it is not strictly USB compatible.

Their chargers work wonderfully with other devices, though, since they are capable of putting out a lot more than .5A of juice. Her old RAZR car charger is in my car and does a great job charging my Blackberry.

Re:how about cellphones first?

[Hurricane78]

I guess you're stupid, ignorant or a bigot.

It is possible to disagree with someone, or attempt to point out some information you think that person might not have, without dropping to the level of insult.

But then he wouldn’t be an Apple fanboi, hunting all the articles for mentionings of his holy words of Jobs, and insulting everything close to it, would he?

Re:how about cellphones first?

[Mattsson]

The Iphone has a similar issue.
I tried charging it using the cable and charger that came with it but via a one meter USB extension cable in order to be able to actually use the phone while charging. No go.
The Iphone happily informed me that it was unable to charge. I tried several different cables and none worked.
Apparently, the Iphone couldn't tolerate the added electrical resistance of one meter extra cable.

Break the shrinking USB standard

[Orga]

enough of the USB -> miniUSB -> microUSB.. time to go GojiraUSB. Really shove it to those japanese!

They already did.

[Colin Smith]

It's USB.
 

Wrong Solution!

[turgid]

Why wait around for the batteries to charge when you could have standard interchangeable battery packs?

You could drive up to a machine that swaps out your spent battery with a recharged one in a matter of seconds.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[bananaquackmoo]

Because its a lot easier to get companies to agree upon a certain plug to use than it is to get them to agree upon what kind of battery and where to put said battery.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[Belial6]

With a standard format for the entire battery pack, you could also replace it with ANY power source that fit the dimensions and connector.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[$RANDOMLUSER]

You and what crane? The batteries make up a significant percentage of the weight of the car. Plus the question of physical access and high-current electrical connections.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[snspdaarf]

For the same reason we don't swap tires out instead of getting a flat fixed. I don't want the tire you have abused for 30k miles, I want my much newer tire, which has never been run low on air or bounced off a curb, back on my car.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[turgid]

I can buy Duracell, Energiser, Panasonic, Phillips, el cheapo AA, AAA etc. batteries and they'll all work in my camera or TV remote. I have Energiser and Sony rechargeables. You can buy replacement laptop batteries. Why the heck would it be difficult to do the same for electric vehicles?

Re:Wrong Solution!

[BitterOak]

I've heard a lot of people talk about swappable batteries as a solution to the charging time problem, but I really don't see how it can work. The problem is, batteries are VERY expensive, and they have a finite lifetime. A new battery would then be much more costly than an old one. The result is that after the swap, you could be left with a battery that is either (a) much more valuable, or (b) much less valuable than the one you started with. Neither of these scenarios would be appealing to all parties concerned. I can see people making a business of constantly trading in old, worthless batteries for new ones and selling them for a huge profit. Refueling stations could do something similar, replacing all batteries with ones which are nearing the end of their lifetime. Someone gets stuck with the bill. Has anyone proposed a solution to this problem?

Re:Wrong Solution!

[Tekfactory]

I've said this before, in order for this to work, interchangeable batteries need a standardized exchange like a 20 lb propane tank.

They need to be so dead simple that people who do not understand electronics and can't connect jumper cables now, won't mind unhooking and reattaching the connector to Multi-Hundred AmpHour batteries IN THE RAIN.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[wowbagger]

"Why wait around for the batteries to charge when you could have standard interchangeable battery packs?"

This comes up every time rechargeable cars comes up, and it is still just as wrong now as the first time.

First of all, not all batteries will be the same. Most of the battery chemistries in use for electric cars have a finite cycle life. So, you pull into the station with your brand-spanking-new, only one charge/discharge cycle battery, and you get it swapped out for the battery I left there with 10000 cycles on it, that has a quarter the capacity. True, you could have the pack record and report its charge cycle history, but that doesn't stop the fact that the only "charged" battery the station has right now is my hammered to death pack, and you are getting screwed on the deal.

Second of all, these packs are HEAVY. Not just the 40 kg your gas tank is, but more like several HUNDRED kilograms. They have to be an integral part of the car's frame, or else in a collision they are going to play Hulk and "HULK SMASH!" their way through the rest of the car (and likely you!). Making something that is BOTH well attached to the car's frame AND easily removable is like making a pocket sized 52" display.

Third of all is the machinery to pull that pack out of your car. It has to be automated, or it has to be operated by a trained operator. When was the last time you had somebody else pump your gas? OK, so skip the trained operator, it has to be automated such that a) BillyBob can "run" it, b) it can handle the car being parked at any number of weird angles to the system, c) it won't crush Little Billy who gets in the way, and d) it POSITIVELY CANNOT have ANY chance of scratching the paint, because BillyBob *WILL* accuse the station of just that, even when the "scratch" has doe fur and hoofprints!

Fourth of all is the issue of what happens if you run out of power out on the road. Right now it is no big deal for [AAA|The Highway Patrol|a passing motorist|A tow truck] to get you a gallon or two of gas so you can make it to a gas station. Good luck with swapping the battery pack in the road. OR you have to have a charging port + a special portable charging system to get you the equivalent of that "couple of gallons" of gas.

I see you are a fan of mine, and I hope my pointing this out won't change that, but - there are good reasons swapping batteries, while great for your phone, doesn't scale to your car.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[Logical Zebra]

I can buy Duracell, Energiser, Panasonic, Phillips, el cheapo AA, AAA etc. batteries and they'll all work in my camera or TV remote. I have Energiser and Sony rechargeables. You can buy replacement laptop batteries. Why the heck would it be difficult to do the same for electric vehicles?

Maybe because the battery packs on electric vehicles weigh in excess of 500 lbs?

Re:Wrong Solution!

[turgid]

Maybe because the battery packs on electric vehicles weigh in excess of 500 lbs?

Which is why they'd be replaced by a machine! A machine can wash my car, so a machine should be able to find the battery compartment, unlock it, open it, remove the old battery pack, insert the new one, close the door and lock it again.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[FatAlb3rt]

Next time you're in the grocery store, count how many different sizes of batteries they stock. Now imagine the floor space required to do the same with batteries big enough to power a car. We're early enough in this game that battery design is still changing fairly frequently - power output and size requirements. Seems to me that standardizing the plug is the first step, once the battery tech stabilizes, maybe swapping will be more feasible.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[turgid]

I see you are a fan of mine, and I hope my pointing this out won't change that, but - there are good reasons swapping batteries, while great for your phone, doesn't scale to your car.

I was trying to think of something witty to say regarding having a disagreement with someone you know or learning stuff and all that. Should I take umbridge now?

Re:Wrong Solution!

[vlm]

You forgot dealing with tolerances.

Its difficult to design a system that, WHEN ITS NEW, will fit any battery from any manufacturer without jamming in place or falling out on the road.

Whats worse is after BillyBob jumps curbs, offroads a bit, gets towed, smashes thru potholes, NOW will all batteries and slots freely interchange yet fit perfectly.

And when BillyBob bends, stretches or smooshs a battery the last 0.001 out of tolerance, and tries to exchange it, who eats the cost, BillyBob? You know he's going to blame the automated machinery for the damage.

Finally any electric problem that ever occurs will of course be blamed on someone elses battery pack. Ditto for accidents.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[jimbolauski]

Cause a forklift with 500lbs of batteries in it is never going to be misaligned and damage a car.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[SlothDead]

Simple, the people don't own the batteries. And when you recharge you pay a little extra fee instead of having to buy a battery later. That fee covers the production of new batteries and the recycling of old ones.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[wowbagger]

"Ask your doctor if umbridge is right for you. Side effects include elevated blood pressure, agitation, sweating, swearing, reddened vision, frothing at the mouth, and in some cases, death."

Re:Wrong Solution!

[Dog-Cow]

In over 100 years of the modern automobile, auto manufactures have not standardized on a location for the gas tank opening. You don't even have consistency between different models of the same manufacturer.

I'll leave extrapolation to battery packs to the reader.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard a lot of people talk about swappable batteries as a solution to the charging time problem, but I really don't see how it can work. The problem is, batteries are VERY expensive, and they have a finite lifetime. A new battery would then be much more costly than an old one. The result is that after the swap, you could be left with a battery that is either (a) much more valuable, or (b) much less valuable than the one you started with. Neither of these scenarios would be appealing to all parties concerned. I can see people making a business of constantly trading in old, worthless batteries for new ones and selling them for a huge profit. Refueling stations could do something similar, replacing all batteries with ones which are nearing the end of their lifetime. Someone gets stuck with the bill. Has anyone proposed a solution to this problem?

Well, even if you think it won't work, it's already been done.

http://www.betterplace.com/

What you haven't thought of is that this company owns all of the batteries, so the different degrees of wear aren't an issue. They take full responsibility for battery maintinence and replacement. The idea is that you pay only for the capacity you use via an 8 cents per mile driven cell phone style contract called eMiles. So one way or the other, all of the batteries that get used up are paid off by that time.

This is the standard pack that will be used in Renault, Nissan and Tesla's cars btw.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[Mindcontrolled]

I see the problem with swappable batteries rather in crash safety. Battery packs are huge and heavy, so they carry a tremendous momentum in case of a crash. To prevent them to rip loose, you have to secure them really tight, which somewhat conflicts with easy replacement.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can buy Duracell, Energiser, Panasonic, Phillips, el cheapo AA, AAA etc. batteries and they'll all work in my camera or TV remote. I have Energiser and Sony rechargeables. You can buy replacement laptop batteries. Why the heck would it be difficult to do the same for electric vehicles?

(emphasis mine)

So... um... as per your initial suggestion of standardized interchangeable battery packs and assertions presented in the quoted statements, you're suggesting that you can get a replacement Dell battery to fit your Toshiba laptop? Or that you can swap your Lenovo laptop's battery into your HP? Or, for that matter, that laptop models from the same company have compatible batteries to models from a couple years back?

Or, to put it in other words, you're seriously suggesting there's some manner of, as you previously put it, "standardized interchangeable battery pack" in the laptop industry? I mean, of course, in the entire industry, akin to what is being suggested in Japan with regards to this article. As in, all companies would follow this standard. Such a battery pack would be used by, in our example, Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo, HP, Apple, etc, etc.

Alternatively, can you point me to a series of multiple laptops from multiple different companies that all support the large, bulky, standard-size batteries (AA, AAA, C, D, 9-Volt, etc), and not the entirely-non-standardized, smaller, more efficient, specialized-to-the-specific-use batteries people would rather be using for things like that?

And, on a side note, have you ever seen the watch battery racks in major supermarkets, where they can easily have around 20-30 "standard" sizes?

Of course, all of this is just me being bored and in the mood for a decent debate, since looking over the rest of your replies, it's pretty well clear you're a troll. However, since it's also clear you're a classic, old-school troll (in the school of "making obviously uninformed comments in an attempt to subtly draw ire and argument", as opposed to the modern-day school of "shout profanities and racial epithets as loud and as insistently as possible to get people to tune you out quickly"), I'm actually dignifying your comment-fishing with this response. Well-written, good sir! If only all trolls would be as interesting as you.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[BitterOak]

Simple, the people don't own the batteries.

So, who does own the battery? The company that runs the refueling stations? The problem is, in America at least, we like a certain amount of competition. Just as there are multiple companies from which you can buy gas, Texaco, Exxon, Shell, etc., there would probably be multiple charge suppliers. Would you be limited to using just one? That could be a problem on the highway, where there is little choice.

And when you recharge you pay a little extra fee instead of having to buy a battery later. That fee covers the production of new batteries and the recycling of old ones.

The problem is the fee would have to depend on the relative value of the new battery vs. the old one, and that could vary greatly, with no easy way to tell at swap time. That's the point I was trying to make. What's to stop someone from buying up near dead batteries and swapping them for new ones (paying the small fee) and making a huge profit? And what's to stop recharging stations from giving everyone near worthless batteries that are at the end of their life. I think this is an inherent problem with a battery swapping scheme.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[Blakey Rat]

I don't want your skeezy old battery in my nice new electric car.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[HeckRuler]

This is why every ELECTRO-STATION will employ a full-time roboticist PHD to maintain the giant mecha-arms that swap out your batteries.

(or we could just have an outlet at every street-light and travel the interstate with internal combustion)

Re:Wrong Solution!

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone proposed a solution to this problem?

You do not buy batteries, you rent or subscribe to access the batteries from a battery or electricity supplier. Then you save the initial expense of the battery pack, and need not worry about it's condition.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[517714]

A solution for swapping equity? Yeah they have had it for years. Embedded electronics that monitor the condition of the batteries. Check your laptop, it probably has this feature.

The scenario could go something like this: You turn your battery in, the charge station reads the condition, and the charge of the battery asks if you would like to pay more for a battery in better condition or receive a credit for one in poorer condition. You make your selection and then you get a charged battery. This way you can get a good battery for a long trip or one with a bit less range for commuting. You pay for the power used to charge the battery and condition based on how much your usage pattern degrades the battery. Environmentally this makes sense as it makes bad batteries accessable to be disassembled and rebuilt keeping the users from wasting huge amounts of power (trying) to charge bad cells.

All very simple until the hacks begin - approximately day two.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[Jedi Alec]

This is why every ELECTRO-STATION will employ a full-time roboticist PHD to maintain the giant mecha-arms that swap out your batteries.

I can live with that...on one condition.

If it damages my car in any way, I get to use the mecha to go to work while they fix my car...and it has to be equipped with 2 Tesla guns(and enough juice to actually use them).

Re:Wrong Solution!

[BitterOak]

Actually, your idea sounds like the only potentially workable solution to the problem. (Some others have suggested that the driver doesn't own the battery and instead "the company" does, but they fail to mention which company.) The only potential problem with your plan is that given the huge value of these batteries (I've heard figures as high as I've spent on used cars!) there would be a huge value differential between a new battery and a very old one, so the temptation to tamper with the electronics would be great. It sounds like a good scheme, but you'd need some pretty impressive DRM on your batteries' electronics for this to work! Do you think they can create something truly uncrackable?

Re:Wrong Solution!

[petermgreen]

I see at least two big problems with that idea.

1: car battery packs are pretty valuable. Would I want a service station replacing my brand new battery pack with one that may be on it's last legs? the only way it could be even somewhat acceptable is if all the battery packs were owned by a central company who gauranteed to replace any that dropped below a certain level as part of the service. Of course than that company would probablly want to charge extra if you wanted to charge the battery packs at home.

2: the battery packs would have to be a standard size and shape and loaded/unloaded in a standardised way. This combined with the large size of the pack would put huge restrictions on the designs of cars that used them.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[WhatDoIKnow]

Why not swap the whole car?

Re:Wrong Solution!

[MrPhilby]

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/05/better-place/ easy

Re:Wrong Solution!

[Anonymous Coward]

One more factor is cost. Even assuming the packs are standardized, every station basically needs enough packs to get through a 1 hour (more accurately 1 recharge cycle) rush. Let's say that we're refitting a small 6 lane station so about 12 car/5min and a 15 min cycle so you need to always have 36 packs on hand at around $180,000. The worst part is that, even if we assume that people are fundamentally honest, your packs age at the rate of the fleet average. What happens when you get a pack that has crossed whatever line demarcates "good/bad"? Do you eat that $5000? Do you tell your customer that today's fill is going to cost $5015? What if he got that pack from you yesterday? Do you even give out borderline packs?

You could own all the packs and have the users pay a subscription (eg: $1000/yr + charging) but that doesn't fix all the problems and locks the customer into a specific brand.

Finally, no matter how you slice it, your cost/driver is far more than a plug, switch and meter amortized over 10 years so you won't be even remotely cost competitive with plug-in charging, whether user owned or included in parking..

Re:Wrong Solution!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that I'm entirely convinced that interchangeable batteries will be the way to go but your arguments are not quite as strong as you believe:

...the only "charged" battery the station has right now is my hammered to death pack, and you are getting screwed on the deal.

Why make the system such that the car owners own the batteries? They're just a method of delivering power. Instead, the system should be such that (car) power companies provide the batteries and a minimum number of Ah after any battery change is guaranteed. Then they would just have to equip the batteries with meters and charge you based on how many Ah you've used. Furthermore, different car power companies competing with each other doesn't mean that battery sizes can't be the same. Since service stations will read the meters in the batteries anyway, they can also monitor their condition and with appropriate regulations, car power companies can have a fair scheme for replacing batteries in joint circulation.

Making something that is BOTH well attached to the car's frame AND easily removable is like making a pocket sized 52" display.

No. It's difficult but considering how technology advances all the time, it might not be unfeasible for long. Radical changes to car designs might be required but maybe e.g. a tight tube from the front to the back low between seats would be a good place for a sturdy battery pack?

Third of all is the machinery to pull that pack out of your car. It has to be automated, or it has to be operated by a trained operator. When was the last time you had somebody else pump your gas? OK, so skip the trained operator, it has to be automated such that a) BillyBob can "run" it, b) it can handle the car being parked at any number of weird angles to the system, c) it won't crush Little Billy who gets in the way, and d) it POSITIVELY CANNOT have ANY chance of scratching the paint

Clearly, you have not seen what precision in movements modern industrial robots have even when lifting enormous weights. This is a non-issue.

Fourth of all is the issue of what happens if you run out of power out on the road. Right now it is no big deal for [AAA|The Highway Patrol|a passing motorist|A tow truck] to get you a gallon or two of gas so you can make it to a gas station.

You don't mean that this is a bigger problem for electric cars with interchangeable batteries do you?

I see you are a fan of mine, and I hope my pointing this out won't change that, but - there are good reasons swapping batteries, while great for your phone, doesn't scale to your car.

It's amusing that you mention phones along with cars since who would've thought in the 1960s when car phones had to be placed in the trunk that we'd have a fully automated mobile phone network with international roaming and handheld phones barely a decade later? The Nordic countries were at the forefront of mobile phone technology at the time and that's how fast it went.

A comparison with how mobile phones have developed shows that it can happen when (1) there are signs that the technology is possible to develop and (2) investors believe that there will be customers and (3) governments agree (needed for standardization and regulation). So if you think "electric car with interchangeable battery" = "mobile phone" and "battery change station" = "base station", the idea shouldn't be considered flat out wrong at all.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[drinkypoo]

Not only would that require vehicles to be based on a standard plan, but it would also require that plan to be lame. Most EVs put the batteries in locations where they're extremely inconvenient to replace. Nissan/Renault is about to figure this out for us, though; Nissan is releasing a plug-in EV in the US and Japan "this year" and Renault is doing a Megane EV with swappable batteries.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[SlothDead]

I don't know much about the situation in the USA, but in Germany we already have a certain amount of competition. Here's how our normal tiny AA batteries work:
- You can buy AA batteries from many different companies
- You can charge them at your own wall plug, which is standardized
- You can choose among a few electricity providers.

So that's how I imagine the swapping scheme:
When you arrive at the swapping station you see a list of the available batteries, sorted by vendor or amount of recharges or expected milage (for your car modell). Swapping in an old battery is cheap, getting a new one costs more.

Also, I don't really understand the problem of "swapping an old battery and then selling the new one". When you buy a car you could make a security deposit for the battery at the recharger station. Ideally, this amount should be included in the price you pay for your car. This deposit is linked to your car ID (but not to your name). So when you got a new battery and sold it you won't be able to get another one for swap, unless you repay your security deposit.
(My english isn't that good, but I hope you get the idea)

SAE J1772 Standard exists for North America

[Anonymous Coward]

There is an IEC standard I believe as well. I don't know what the Japanese are going to do different...I imagine the interface and handshaking between the automobile and the charger will be similar. You need 240 VAC, 80A max type of connection to charge a fully electric car in any sort of reasonable timeframe in any case....

Replacable batteries?

[certron]

Why not just develop a design to swap out batteries through an automated crane? Pull in, the robot arm removes your empty battery and replaces it with a full one. The empty battery charges at whatever pace the 'gas' station deems necessary (maybe overnight when prices are lower) and the driver has a full charge within seconds. I'm almost certain I saw this idea put forth on /. in the past.

Re:Replacable batteries?

[cayenne8]

"Why not just develop a design to swap out batteries through an automated crane? Pull in, the robot arm removes your empty battery and replaces it with a full one. The empty battery charges at whatever pace the 'gas' station deems necessary (maybe overnight when prices are lower) and the driver has a full charge within seconds. I'm almost certain I saw this idea put forth on /. in the past."

How's that going to help you at home? What if your car runs outta power at home after sitting for awhile, etc...?

Frankly, I don't think it should only be one or the other...how about both? You can charge from an outlet when available, and swap out at a station while on the road?

Re:Replacable batteries?

[Anonymous Coward]

a brand new battery that holds a larger charge is worth more than an old battery. Plus I'm assuming that there would be batteries that could hold lots of electricity and some that hold very little, your idea would require there to be only a few types of battery.

Re:Replacable batteries?

[Michael Kristopeit]

yeah, 3 minutes ago

Re:Replacable batteries?

[natehoy]

Yes, and there are a number of problems with it.

First, have you SEEN the line at fuel stations? How many batteries do you need to stock to "refuel" all of the cars in a given day? Even if you have a one-hour charging system, you'll need a lot of batteries just to get through rush hour. Miles-per-charge is lower than miles-per-fuel-tank, so you'll need to change batteries more often, so those lines will be longer (hence the need for more batteries). Battery swaps are going to take at least 10 minutes, as opposed to a 5-minute fillup like we have today.

Second, a removable battery needs to be accessed, but protected, meaning the overall weight of the car increases. With a built-in battery, you can install it right in the middle of the car, down low, where it keeps your center of gravity nice and low and is protected against most impacts. The car frame can hold it in place. With a removable, you need to move it to the edge somewhere, and you need the battery in a frame designed for easy slide-out.

Third, batteries lose capacity over time. So you buy your brand-new car with a battery that can handle 150 miles, then end up with a battery that can handle 75, then one that can do 85, then 120, then 40 - you'd never know how long a battery would take you. And who decommissions the old batteries? Who pays for all that?

Finally, different vehicles will require different battery standards. An SUV is going to differ from a 4-seat sedan which will differ from a 1-seat commuter car. Even if all the companies got together and decided on 4-5 standards for batteries (similar to the AAA/AA/C/D standards we have today), that's still a lot of batteries for a fuel station to store.

I'm not saying these are insurmountable, but they are the reason why you won't see a plethora of battery swap stations for electric cars in the next decade, at least.

Re:Replacable batteries?

[timeOday]

First, have you SEEN the line at fuel stations? How many batteries do you need to stock to "refuel" all of the cars in a given day?

The vast majority of car trips are short distances, so most of the fillups would use the "recharge at home" option, reducing crowding at battery swap stations.

With a built-in battery, you can install it right in the middle of the car, down low, where it keeps your center of gravity nice and low and is protected against most impacts.

So, put the replaceable batteries in the undercarriage, too. That makes it easy for standardized robotic jacks to see and lower out the old batteries, and raise in the new ones.

Third, batteries lose capacity over time.

Cars use a large number of cells, the total number of which should be split into several batteries. (This also creates the option of driving around with a partial battery load to reduce weight and increase efficiency, which makes a lot of sense for most cars which only travel e.g. 30 miles most days. It also makes it possible for the standard battery size to be lifted by hand, say 50 lbs, which just seems like a good idea for a variety of reasons). The batteries should be recycled when capacity dwindles to 80%. By keeping some inventory of batteries, the swap station could closely approximate an industry standard of, say, 90% capacity by mixing new and old batteries. (For a car that takes 3, you might get one 90%, one 95%, and one 85%). (Feasibly the batteries could be hacked to lie about their capacity, but you could say the same about fuel pumps at filling stations today).

Finally, different vehicles will require different battery standards. An SUV is going to differ from a 4-seat sedan which will differ from a 1-seat commuter car.

They only need to differ in the number of batteries they hold - 2 batteries for a little car, 5 for a big one.

Re:Replacable batteries?

[grumbel]

Yes, and there are a number of problems with it.

Which luckily people have already thought of years ago and solved since then.

Miles-per-charge is lower than miles-per-fuel-tank, so you'll need to change batteries more often,

You charge at home and maybe even at work. The only time where you would need the battery replacement is if you drive beyond what a battery can hold on a single charge, which is a very small percentage of all the driving you do day to day.

Battery swaps are going to take at least 10 minutes, as opposed to a 5-minute fillup like we have today.

2 minutes to be exact.

The car frame can hold it in place. With a removable, you need to move it to the edge somewhere, and you need the battery in a frame designed for easy slide-out.

Battery replacement works just fine when mounted under the car, see above video.

And who decommissions the old batteries? Who pays for all that?

The company from which you lease the batteries. You don't buy batteries in this scheme, you lease them and only pay for the amount of miles you drive. Nicely solves all problems with disposal and reduced capacity.

Re:Replacable batteries?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that automated gas pump working out for you? Stull connecting it by hand?

Now imagine the problem when there are, say, *more than one* battery configuration on the road.

Connector style?

[Yvan256]

So, what does the connector look like? I bet it's a tentacle of some sort.

Re:Connector style?

[Logical Zebra]

And the vehicle's receptacle looks like...never mind.

Re:Connector style?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm more interested in what the receptacle looks like. It would be great if it had two receptacles, so two chargers could be inserted into one car.

Re:Connector style?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you meant three receptacles.

Re:Connector style?

[Kentari]

Better hope there's going to be some current steering diodes in there or that could lead to some disturbing Darwin Awards...

confused..

[zmollusc]

Does this mean I should take a sip of tea every time the regenerative brakes are used? These electric cars are much more trouble than anticipated.

Should have a drop-down and identification

[rolfwind]

I think chargers where you have to hook it up manually everytime would be laborious. It would be cool if in middle of the engine compartment would drop down some type of charging unit, perhaps working by induction (if that can deliver), everytime you park. There would be some type of identification so that if the car isn't authorized, the mat wouldn't charge it.

Morever, public parking spots could use the identification to bill the appropriate party and everytime you park, you could be recharged. Or something with those benefits.

Re:Should have a drop-down and identification

[ickleberry]

thats far too orwellian. what else do you want? some DRM that can make the car refuse to drive until a fine is paid? mandatory GPS speed limiter?

Re:Should have a drop-down and identification

[natehoy]

Interesting possibility. Of course, the inductive charging system would weigh half what the batteries would, so your effective range is dropped, but as long as you have a valid recharge station within range of where you are going that day, you're good.

An expansion on that idea would be inductive charging on the highway. Solves the range problem right there. If you are going any distance, your car is charged along the way, so "100 miles per charge" would only count if you wanted to drive that 100 miles off-highway. You could drive from Maine to California on a single "charge". More rural areas could have inductive or direct-hookup charging systems at stations.

Re:Should have a drop-down and identification

[HeckRuler]

I'd be happy with a coin-op extension cable at the base of the light pole in the parking lot.

Re:Should have a drop-down and identification

[HeckRuler]

The range for induction charging is in the centimeters or millimeter range and will not be used to power your car on the highway. It would be lovely, but it won't work. For variations of your idea, please refer to wikipedia or fashion something like a rail car.

Re:Should have a drop-down and identification

[natehoy]

Darn Edison and his wiring. We shoulda gone with Tesla.

Wireless power!

Plus, the real possibility of cancer and electrocutions.

What's not to love? :)

Re:Should have a drop-down and identification

[dakameleon]

How many pennies do you plan on carrying, exactly?

Re:Should have a drop-down and identification

[HeckRuler]

Well, let's do some real rough math. It's like $0.14 a kW/hr and the Chevy volt, just as an example, has a 16kWh battery. So presuming I run it dry just getting to work, that would be $2.24 to get it fully charged for when I leave.

So that would be 3 coins, and I donate a penny.

Were you aware that today's modern cars have a contraption that scientists like to call a "change dispenser".

Aw, Japan....

[Gorimek]

Japan is the world's weird uncle!

You know, the one that always tries too make jokes.

Re:Aw, Japan....

[Anonymous Coward]

Weird Uncle... Riiight. Obviously, you've never been to Japan.

I can think of a dozen things to say (Racist, Insular, Geeky, Aging, Crowded, but not really, Xenophobic, Police State, Technological, Creative, Harmonious :-) but Weird Uncle?

No. The US of A is the Weird Uncle. Always loud and obnoxious, spouting bull about things he doesn't know anything about. He comes to your place, breaks your family heirlooms and then refuses to go home. Worse, everyone's afraid to say anything.

too weak for charging

[peter303]

E-vehicle companies are looking at commercial charging: 400-some volts, 60 AMPs. You can recharge during a meal instead of overnight then. You wont have these in houses, but at workplaces and businesses.

Re:too weak for charging

[nospam007]

My electric oven and washing machine used 380+ Volt for 30 years like most of Europe, the washing machine can be operated on both 240 and 380V.

Re:too weak for charging

[Anonymous Coward]

Just so we're not losing sight of the power involved in moving vehicles: One liter of diesel (roughly a quarter gallon) chemically stores the equivalent of about 10kWh. With 60A at 400V you can transport 24kWh per hour, a little more than the equivalent of half a gallon.

Re:too weak for charging

[Black Gold Alchemist]

Electric vehicles, on average, are about 250-300 watt-hours/mile at 65 mph. So, that means we add 100 miles of range in an hour. Meanwhile, the gas station that filled up our car transferred energy at a rate of about 22 megawatts.

Re:too weak for charging

[Anonymous Coward]

250-300 watt-hours/mile at 65 mph

250-300 Wh/mile at 65 mph means an average of about 15-20kW. Drive that for two hours a day and you add 1.5kW to your round-the-clock average electric power consumption. That about doubles the current average per person in the US.

Re:too weak for charging

[JohnnyBGod]

Wait... what? Where is this most of Europe you speak of? 'Cause I've certainly never seen 380 V anything anywhere from Portugal to Italy. Never even heard about it, either.

Re:too weak for charging

[jhol13]

He is, maybe, referring to three phase system where the voltage between the "live" wires is 400 volts. Well, at least in Finland, I do not know Portugal or Italy.

The oven in Finland normally uses three phases, but normal washing machine does not.

Re:too weak for charging

[Black Gold Alchemist]

Or adds $4500 worth of solar cells to your roof. But most people do not drive 2 hours a day. Most drive 40 miles/day, and most drive much slower than 65.

Re:too weak for charging

[TheLink]

Even if his washing machine or other domestic appliance is on 380+VAC, it's not 60 amps.

60amps is a lot of current.

Re:too weak for charging

[CyberDragon777]

220/380V was the old voltage standard in some parts of Europe before it got "harmonized" to 230/400V

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity#Standardization

Re:too weak for charging

[Anonymous Coward]

More like $45000 worth of solar cells. Average is about 10% of peak performance, due to cloud cover, light shining onto the panels at an angle most of the day and the sun being on the other side of the planet half the time.

Re:too weak for charging

[Black Gold Alchemist]

I already accounted for that. Its about a factor of 0.3.

charged battery!=new battery

[Anonymous Coward]

as I'm sure you are well aware, the more charges you run through a battery the lower its ability to hold a charge... bet people would be mighty pissed turning in their brand new battery from their new car for one that has seen hundreds or thousands of charges and will barely get them to work before konking out.

a sad day

[Tumbleweed]

It's a sad day when it rates a news article when someone uses common sense. *sigh*

Re:a sad day

[Vyse of Arcadia]

You must die a little inside every day.

Re:a sad day

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it is seeming like a step in the right direction, which I guess is sad in its own way.

Scary

[Jeff-reyy]

If the Japanese know what's good for them they will take to the streets to protest this heavy handed government intrusion into private industry. Charger standards will emerge for cars when the market is ready, just like with cell phones. Ask the Russians how they like their centrally planned economy and then ask yourself if you really want big gubbermint bureaucrats legislating charger standards for cars, or USB chargers for cell phones.

Re:Scary

[Dog-Cow]

I agree that something's scary, but it's not what you think it is.

Re:Scary

[Jeff-reyy]

At least we agree that without the ability to put criminals and terrorists to death, the state can never provide justice to its shareholders.

Server power supply of the future?

[vlm]

Something no one has ever mentioned on Slashdot, I think, is that the SAE J1772 electric car charger standard is designed for drunken morons to transfer well in excess of 15 KW, more or less continuously.

Frankly, I would not be surprised to see it become the new standard high power AC electric plug... think about it, one plug, worldwide, for very large server racks, SANs, electric clothes dryers, arc welders, big UPSes, generators, etc...

Its going to be in mass production weather we use it or not, it seems fairly idiot proof, it seems like it would be a great idea to standardize our worldwide electrical infrastructure on this new connector...

Re:Server power supply of the future?

[petermgreen]

At least in europe we already have a standard set of tough industrial mains connectors ranging from 16A single phase to 125A three phase (I think there may be a 250A version too). 63A 230V/400V three phase gives a total of 43KW.

In general you DON'T want just one connector because you DON'T want people connecting incompatible stuff together.

whats the point?

[uncanny]

This is a little off topic, sure, but i have a question that maybe someone reading this will clear up for me. What is the point of switching to electric cars if the source still puts out emissions? I find it funny that these "golf carts" where i work proudly boast "GREEN" and "EMISSION FREE" however, we're still getting our power from coal plants, and i doubt they are very clean burning anyways.

Re:whats the point?

[ickleberry]

this has been done to death

*Its still more efficient than burning fuel directly

*Solar, wind all that shit are getting much more common, and reduce the amount that comes from coal

*You can use your own solar panels/turbine to generate 100% coal/oil-free electricity

*Other stuff I forgot goes here

Re:whats the point?

[iksbob]

It's a lot easier to put big, heavy, expensive emissions reducing and filtering equipment on a stationary power plant than it is to equip every single car on the roads. Further, more efficient engines can be built when they aren't restricted to weighing a ton or less, and when they don't have to stand up to the pounding and harsh environmental conditions that car engines experience.

Re:whats the point?

[chill]

Feel free to ask that question in any city that has "smog" problems for a quick answer. Power plants can be located outside city limits and easier to apply scrubbers to than a few million, small, mobile pollutant sources.

Re:whats the point?

[BobPaul]

How efficient is your lawn mower? Not nearly as efficient as your automobile, is it? The car is bigger, so it's easier to get higher efficiencies. Now compare your car to a diesel locomotive. The locomotive is far more efficient than your car. Now compare the locomotive to a coal fired power plant. As bad as coal fired plants are, they are (especially the new ones) far more efficient than even the locomotive.

If everything ran on electric, we'd still be burning fossil fuels, but we'd be burning them more efficiently. And while you'll never ever ever be able to stick a CO2 scrubber on your car exhaust and sequester that under the ground, this is something that is quite possible (though perhaps too expensive to ever happen on a large scale) with a stationary coal plant.

And then there's always the possibility that we can use Uranium Nuclear, Thorium Nuclear, Wind, Solar, Hydro, Tidal, Wave, Geo-thermal, and a whole series of other sources for the electricity that don't emit carbon.

So, not just 'a bit off-topic'; 'a bit not thought out'.

I need a Powermat for my Prius

[gimmebeer]

Plugging stuff in takes way too long. Park it on your Powermat for a bit and you're done. Or better yet, build roads out of Powermats! How I'm not a billionaire yet I can't understand...

Re:I need a Powermat for my Prius

[HeckRuler]

Well it'd be expensive, so there would only be one lane.
And we wouldn't want anyone damaging that lane, so instead of a road, we'd put down two steel rails.
And not to interfere with the older infrastructure, we'll set it off to the side
We'll build large centralized "stations" that people that use to get onto of off of our exclusive "powermat" road.
Yessir, you and we are going to be the tycoons of the future.

While we're at it we'll build planes entirely out of black boxes!

15 minutes?

[phantomcircuit]

I'm sorry but 15 minutes? That is complete and utter crap. It takes hours to fully recharge. In fact it takes "about 3.5 hours" http://www.teslamotors.com/performance/perf_specs.php to recharge a tesla motors roadster.

But I just noticed that the article says nothing about that... DAMN YOU EDITORS!

Re:15 minutes?

[e9th]

Even if 15 minutes is realistic, just imagine waiting in line at a power station knowing that each customer ahead of you means 15 minutes waiting time before you can even begin. They'd better have some really good tea.

Re:15 minutes?

[WalksOnDirt]

Tesla uses LiCo batteries, which are relatively slow. The Nissan Leaf is capable of an 80% charge in 30 minutes using faster LiMn batteries. A 15 minute charge is possible with even faster batteries, but by that point it's starting to get expensive.

Re:15 minutes?

[magus_melchior]

Well, either they're going to use golf carts, or they're planning on using an interface that can squirt insane amounts of power into the car.

Knowing the Japanese industry, it'll be choice A.

Re:15 minutes?

[BobPaul]

That's mostly a sourcing problem. If you only have a 20Amp source, you can't ever charge at a rate greater than 20Amps. The thing is (and this varies quite a bit in the specifics with battery type), as a rule of thumb for the first 80% you can charge at extremely high charge rates. This is because internal resistance builds as you put charge into the battery.

You've probably seen 15minute quick chargers for AA NiMH and NiCAD batteries. These charge the first 80% or so with extremely high currents and then drop down to some fraction of C after that point as it builds towards full charge. Lithium based batteries can generally sustain even higher initial charge currents than Nickel based batteries, but are more prone to explosion if you don't monitor changes in heat and internal resistance accurately. So the 15minutes quoted by the OP is totally realistic if the charge station could meet the current demands (ie, is at an electrical substation, has battery or super cap packs charged during off-hours on site, etc), but there really is no reason for the OP to have said 15+ instead of 3+, 60-, or "time it takes to charge".

Keep in mind, the 3.5hours you quote for Tesla is only on 240V service at 20A. 120V service at 20A takes 7-8hours. 240V at 40A or 440V at 20A might be closer to 2hours. And that's for the Tesla, which has a pretty wide range. A light weight commuter electric might only have 40-60miles of charge, so a full charge at standard 240V might only be an hour, meaning high current quick charges could be even faster.

Re:15 minutes?

[petermgreen]

Where are you getting those figures from, the ones I can find on teslas site ( http://www.teslamotors.com/electric/charging.php ) say that a 240V 20A hookup with thier larger portable cable gives a 19 hour charge time.

To get 3.5 hours you need to use the home connector station which charges 240V 70A. EEK!

I find it dissapointing that other than changing which plug adaptor is used on the large portable cable or using a different cable there doesn't seem to be a way to select a lower charge current. Nor is there any easy way to make the charger stop when other heavy loads are in use in the house.

Oh and the charge connections are expensive ranging from $600 for the most basic slow charge cable to $2000 for the 70A home station! According to their website only the slow charge cable is included.

Wait Until The Blue Screen

[Anonymous Coward]

of the Waldac botnet starts to electrocute drivers.

Yours In Perm,
Kilgore Trout

I have that problem all the time

[noidentity]

I'm glad they're finally solving the problem of incompatible car chargers. Just about all my friends have had that problem with their electric vehicles. It's a huge problem. It makes sense for them to attack this, considering how they already solved the problem of incompatible cellphone chargers long ago.

"Karekuro No Anime" .... KaNoMe

[unity100]

wouldnt this one be better ? i mean, for most of us 'the internet' japan is 'tech gadgets', 'cars' and 'anime'.

dont ask me what it is. i made it out of my ass from some words i saw on a japanese website. its as good as any abbreviation any government makes.

oh, snap!

[Thud457]

wow, you must be really bad at explaining things...

Re:oh, snap!

[commodore64_love]

No. Some people simply refuse to listen. My father is one of them.

that's like 450 grams!!!

[Thud457]

they must have very sturdy trouser pockets in your country

Re:that's like 450 grams!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

The English have been fans of enormous trousers at least since the reign of George III.

Induction vs. direct dry contact charging

[kriston]

Which is more efficient: induction charging, like old Chevrolets, or direct dry contact charging?
From what I remember of my induction charging toothbrush it was safe but sure got hot to the touch.

Re:Induction vs. direct dry contact charging

[drinkypoo]

Which is more efficient: induction charging, like old Chevrolets, or direct dry contact charging?

Power conversion always comes with a price. Induction charging adds two conversions. That is all.

Too soon.

[John Hasler]

It's too soon to standardize this. We don't yet know what will be optimum voltages, currents, or charging times. Might turn out to be better to use DC or high frequency AC and an inductive scheme.

Re:Too soon.

[spage]

But if you don't standardize, rolling out a fast-charge infrastructure while you sip tea is much harder. Either recharge stations would be specific to particular car brands, or vehicles would need adapters; that's a lot more expensive at 400V and 50A than non-standard phone chargers.

CHAdeMO == TEPCO == high-voltage DC charging, and as I mentioned in another comment, on the Nissan Leaf this is in addition to its charging receptacle for the SAE J1772-2009 standard that USA and Japan have come up with for 120/240 AC charging.

A decade ago you recharged the incredible GM EV1 by inserting an inductive paddle, but "Magne Charge support was withdrawn by General Motors in 2002, after the California Air Resources Board settled on a conductive charging interface for electric vehicles in California" (Wikipedia). No standards body is contemplating inductive charging.

The more standards the better.

[mspohr]

I have three different Canon digital cameras (point and shoot... all recent vintage). Each of them has a lithium rechargeable battery. All of the batteries are about the same size (within a millimeter or two) but they are all different and not interchangeable and each has a different charger. Drives me crazy.

It should be obvious to most people that the chargers should be standard. After all, we have standards for tires, batteries, fuel filling openings, etc.

Non Issue

[Anonymous Coward]

That's really a non-issue.

If battery swap stations existed, standard batteries would have no value independent of their charge -at least as far as the consumer is concerned. Who cares if the battery has been used once or a thousand times? As long as you can pull in to the station, and swap it out for a fully charged one its irrelevant. As a driver, "it just works" is all you need.

Recycling and re-manufacturing businesses would need to partner up with the swap stations, as the station would eventually wind up with batteries that need to be replaced, but that's just a cost-of-doing-business issue and is factored into profit projections over the long term.

SAE J1772- 'nuff said

[peas_n_carrots]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J1772

Why the Japanese feel that they need to come up with ANOTHER non-standard standard is really quite annoying.

SAE J1772 vs. Mennekes vs TEPCO standards

[spage]

It looks like SAE J1772 will be the American and Japanese standard for level 1 (~120V AC) and level 2 (~220V AC) charging. (More accurately, this is the SAE J1772-2009 revision using the round connector developed by Yazaki. There is already a rectangular J1772 connector developed a decade ago, mostly made by AVCON, that the few hundreds of USA recharge stations and EVs have been using for years.) Tesla says they will retrofit their AC connector to J1772.

But for even faster charging while you have some tea, USA and Japan have decided need to send ~480V DC to the car. On reason given is that supplying any higher AC voltages would make on-board converters too heavy for the car, but it also could be that the residential supply in USA and Japan doesn't go that high. The SAE J1772 group is working on a level 3 high-voltage DC spec, but it's unclear whether the same connector can handle the power. The Nissan Leaf already has a separate DC charge port next to the J1772 connector, see some pictures. I think it and the Mitsubishi i-MiEV use the Japanese TEPCO design for DC, and Tokyo Electric Power Co is behind this CHAdeMO group.

Meanwhile in Europe some manufacturers are poised to to adopt the Mennekes connector, which can handle up to 400V AC three-phase and 63A; I'm not sure where they stand on DC charging. IEC 62196-2 seems a large set of standards for sending juice to a car, I don't know who's supporting it.

These specs are far more elaborate than electrical specifications and a physical connector. They have complicated signaling between the car and charger to indicate what voltages and currents can safely be transferred, timed protocols to turn on the juice, some transfer data during charge to indicate how it's progressing, the car can negotiate with Enron for a discount night-time rate, etc. I imagine you could make adapter cables between different standards, but I assume they would need smart firmware, or at least some way to signal "Just give me 208V AC and forget the protocols" dumbed-down mode.

Charging stations in Japan

[Hebetsubeach]

Charging stations in Japan will be very common. Some of the convenience store chains such as Lawson which has over 9,500 stores in Japan, are planning on having charging stations at their stores which have parking lots. So are supermarkets. The charging stations won't be limited to current gasoline stations. Eventually many places where you park will have charging facilities so there will be little waiting time for someone to charge up as happens at gas stations. And unlike gas stations where you go specifically to gas up, many of the charging facilities in Japan will be at locations where you plan on spending time shopping or doing something. You won't just be waiting for your car to charge. This is why Japan is working on a standard now.

Re:Charging stations in Japan

[Cimexus]

Makes a lot of sense, really. Actually I can foresee a world where there IS no petrol/gas station equivalent. I mean, why go somewhere specifically to charge your car, when you can do it while you're parked at the supermarket. On top of the fact that you'd be charging (slowly) at home using household mains and perhaps at work as well, I really think the need for stand-alone businesses that JUST charge cars will be minimal, at least in urban areas. On highways though they'll obviously be needed.

One step further, what about a standardised little plug built into parking meters/light poles that you could charge off (perhaps for a fee)? The power is already there (since the light pole is powered). An additional source of revenue for city governments perhaps? Then you could charge almost anywhere there is a lit road.

Pit stop

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you want to wait a couple of hours in the repair shop?
If you have the right crew you can have 4 tires changed in 2 seconds (now that refueling has been banned.)

better idea

[ILuvRamen]

I have an idea of what to do during the 15 minutes. You can go into the "gas station" and get some snacks and sit around and be a fat ass OR you can save money by hopping on a bike attached to an alternator to help charge it. That'd be money-saving cheaper energy, green energy, something to do, and cardio/weight loss. That would go absolutely insane in popularity here in the US.

Re:better idea

[drinkypoo]

you can save money by hopping on a bike attached to an alternator to help charge it.

And the two cents it would save you really add up over time, especially since you'll be visiting the charging station twice as often as someone driving a liquid-fuel combustion death machine.