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Company Builds Fast Charging Station For Electric Cars
thecarchik writes "Japanese based JFE Engineering has released its ultra-fast charge station. Designed to comply with the CHAdeMo standard developed by Tokyo Electric Power Company, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Subaru and Toyota, the system is capable of charging a 2011 Mitsubishi i-Miev from empty to 50% full in just three minutes. Even just three minutes plugged into the fast-charge station was enough to enable a standard 2011 Mitsubishi i-Miev to travel a further 50 miles before further charging was required."
This thing is putting nearly a quarter megawatt (240kw) drain on the power grid during use.
I wonder if it has some sort of means of load smoothing and a limited duty cycle, or if it's going to need its own substation.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
I have never owned or even driven one save for a golf cart. My experience with the golf cart leaves me doubt as to whether an electric car can deliver enough torque to climb steep inclines.
Heck, what happens when you are stuck in snow all the while, the spinning of wheels eating away at your juice? Scary, isn't it?
...there are no queues.
My 1996 Passat TDi has a cruising range in excess of 900 miles. That's right,
the car can be driven over 900 miles without stopping for fuel. So while
you are stopped at the charging station, I am driving, and I am also
achieving c. 45 mpg REAL WORLD fuel economy, which makes you
with the electric car look like the chump you are.
Electric cars are not ready for "prime time" yet, because they lack the range
to be useful outside of a commuter scenario. And no amount of PR bullshit
about quick charging is going to alter this fundamental truth.
The problem we all know with a fast charge is the lost of the deep memory cycle, so the atoms for lack of a better word forget how good it can be, hence you get a quickie over and over and you loos interest. In this case, efficency. SO, BFD, unless we will be all about "instant gratification." At the expense of battery life I rather stick with fuel cells or just continue to drive on corn and brown gas as I have. Charleymiller2010 Unaffiliated
I wonder if it has some sort of means of load smoothing and a limited duty cycle, or if it's going to need its own substation.
who cares? it makes no difference to you or car owners
That is so wrong on so many levels. I think my head may explode.
Trust me, you won't see fully electric cars replacing gasoline until we develop cold fusion. Just google how many Joules you get in a pound of gasoline versus a pound of anything else. The technology simply does not exist and will not for a long time. The stuff you see now is just small incremental improvements. Oh and you math geeks, figure out how many pounds of coal was burned to charge that battery halfway.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Designed to comply with the CHAdeMo standard...the system is capable of charging a 2011 Mitsubishi i-Miev from empty to 50% full in just three minutes. Even just three minutes plugged in...enable[d] a standard 2011 Mitsubishi i-Miev to travel a further 50 miles before further charging was required."
Good job being.... very redundant? I supposed you'll want some kind of gold star or something...
Speaking of education, guess what time it is? That's right, it's Mathdot Time!.
Usually around this time I whip out my trusty calculator (and before those mod-point-endowed HP-calculator /.-ers down-mod me into oblivion, yes, "RPN FTW!"), but in this case I think we can just use the power of our brains. Just try not to think too hard or you might hurt your brain.
And...it's a story problem!
If samzenpus can charge his 2011 Mitsubishi i-Miev from empty to 50% full in just three minutes, and if three minutes plugged in...enable[s] his standard 2011 Mitsubishi i-Miev to travel a further 50 miles, what is the range of his vehicle?
100 miles? That's it?
Okay, yeah, apparently electric cars are kind of screwed...
coding is life
see subject. Coming soon. (disclaimer: 2010 Dollars).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Even three minutes is a long time to spend actually at the charger, and as another poster noted that produces a hell of a load on the electrical grid which limits the practicality of deployment for further speed improvements in charging.
I saw an article a bit ago doing the math about how many cars can move through a electric equivalent of a gas station, and something like 10x more gasoline powered cars are able to fuel up FULLY over the course of an hour. And of course if you are only charging for 50 miles station congestion will only be worse.
Purely electric cars are simply not a practical thing, and really don't mesh well with how people like to use cars in America.
That's why I think the alternative fuel of choice will (and should) be Hydrogen. People (consumers and stations and providers) already know how to deal with liquids, it's just an adaptation of existing infrastructure.
Yes it's bloody hard to store and expensive to produce right now. But imagine how much less so it would be (especially production) if the same amount of money were being poured into R&D around Hydrogen cars as we see being poured into electric and solar power.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
100 miles? That's it?
It's a step in the right direction.
For my driving habits this would nearly work* and I would only have a couple of reservations. Early adopters normally put up with a bit of pain to help spur a technology along. If this car would be available at a competitive price point I might actually buy one knowing that it is a stepping stone to what people really envision being offered in an electronic car.
* This car wouldn't have worked for 3 trips, that I can think of, in the last 2 years.
Great, so after 3 minutes--the time it takes to fill up my gas tank--I can go 50 miles. 5 minutes for 70%, and after that, the time to continue to fill up grows exponentially.
We're certainly going in the right direction, but don't give people false hope. Inspire people.
I originally read about it on Engadget, where they note the time trend.
This source also has some more technical details, like charging current, how much current the charging station will draw from the grid (20kW), that the charging station has twin batteries with different properties, that car makers need to adopt new battery types for it to work:
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20100621/183598/
I, for one, refuse to buy an electric vehicle until it has a range of 1000 miles on a single charge, and can be fully recharged in under 30 seconds. Anything less is completely impractical. I also want 12 cup holders. When they achieve this performance level, I will find another rediculous excuse not to buy one.
And I will continue to insist on my god given right to mis-spell rediculous.
Split the battery bank into two and charge them in 90s.
Nullius in verba
Watch from 1:15 to 1:56, avoid idiot blithering.
The Atom is a ridiculous car. I'd actually like to see a drag race between it and the Tesla Roadster.
Check out the Wrightspeed version (Wrightspeed X1). Basically a tesla-like powerplant in the atom frame... The thing flew by me while I was on a bike ride headed up Kings Mtn in Woodside a while back, had no idea what it was (other than extremely fast and quiet, and a 180MPGE license tag)
Video linky (pops)
Search youtube for more, including a race against a NASCAR stock car, Lamborghini, and others.
Tm
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
Indeed, hybrids are far more practical, but it seems that you are misrepresenting the promise of microturbines. From the wikipedia article:
Typical microturbine efficiencies are 25 to 35%. When in a combined heat and power cogeneration system, efficiencies of greater than 80% are commonly achieved.
In automotive applications, the waste heat goes unused; so the efficiency will be in the 25 to 35% range.
Another promising option for hybrids is the OPOC engine, which is a simple, efficient, and clean 2-stroke engine. It is a very interesting design, with a number of other advantages as well.
When coupled with a capacitor/flywheel/etc. to allow for regenerative braking and acceleration, the requirements for the power source in a hybrid are actually very minimal. This allows for the creation of an extremely efficient vehicle, and as far as energy density goes, you can't do much better than hydrocarbons.
Let's assume there are 5 minutes of burned time to stop at a gas station - that's time spent pulling off the road, driving to the gas station, and driving back to the road you were on.
It takes approximately 1.5 minutes (at the US-mandated 10Gal/min maximum pumping rate) for me to fill my car - and that's good for another 450 miles. So, we have 6.5 minutes of downtime for 450 miles.
It takes 3 minutes to fill my tank 1/2 full, and I can only drive 50 miles, so I must stop 9 times in that same 450 miles. 27 minutes of downtime for fueling and 45 minutes of burned time, for a total of 72 minutes for the same 450 miles.
Why on Earth would I want to waste an hour of my life like this for every 450 miles I drive?
Library of Congresses is that?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
times is too much?
I don't own a car. It allows me to be free of a lot of fascist policies implemented due to the public safety issues of vehicles. While driving, you can be stopped at pretty much any time and searched without any real probable cause, since the police officer can simply claim they thought they smelled whiskey on you. Many of your actions are also recorded on camera with a tag that allows any law enforcement agency to easily identify you. Along with the lack of freedom, owning a car is very expensive, time consuming, and in some locations it's the least time efficient way to travel.
The world has moved on, the 1970s and 1980s happened and experience in a few places showed fast breeders are a very expensive dead end.
There are now better ideas in nuclear power and the problem fast breeders set out to solve - scarcity of high grade fuel - turns out not to be a problem anymore since newer designs are less fussy about fuel. Some things like accelerated thorium (a very different sort of breeder reactor) hold the potential to take depleted fuel from other reactors and use that without any incredibly expensive reprocessing.
Waste is of course a problem, but the answer is to deal with it instead of the childish attitude from salesfolk of pretending it isn't a problem. No other industry has to pretend that it is "clean".
All this is going to take serious R&D work instead of the pathetic begging for a handout we've seen from the US nuclear industry that is twenty years behind South Africa. The US nuclear industry probably spends more per year on PR than the entire South African development program that produced the majority of what became the new pebble bed reactors in China.
The French experience to an extent can be called putting all of your eggs in one basket, as seen from having rolling shutdowns to fix a problem in all plants of the same design. Sometimes it pays off, and sometimes it doesn't - the answer (in hindsight) may be to get more of a mature design before you build a lot of them.
Given today's technology, I can well imagine that an electric-only car with its fairly limited range won't suit everyone - but it will suit some people. I have a short commute. An electric car would be perfect for me. What I want to see is diversity in propulsion systems. A one-solution fits all model is probably unrealistic. Gasoline doesn't fit my requirements as well as an all-electric car for example. There are a very wide variety of vehicles from trucks through 2-seat sports cars. Why not endorse a wide variety of propulsion systems too?
With all the problems caused by oil politics and oil pollution, I would really, really like an all-electric car. Then we can work on renewable energy sources and the oil stain on so many lives will become a distant memory.
So let's have hydrogen fuel cells, series hybrids, pure electric and even pure gasoline cars (when the need arises). Then let consumers choose with their wallets what works for them.
It's only a free country if you have choices.
I hope it's more of a riff than a rant...
1) Driven an electric...
I have: in the 90's I drove the Dodge electric minivan. It was EERIE. And very cool. Also driven many Cushman carts, and I can't help but think if 1940's tech can operate so well, why are we still having problems? (Yes, no heater at -20, but they do scoot through the outdoors at that temp as long as their spend 90% of their time indoors. So why can't we make a car that'll reverse that 90:10 ratio?)
2) Range
Get OVER it people. 100 miles is FINE. This is a daily-driver. Stop thinking that you're gonna load the fambly and belongings on it and make like the Clampetts. You want to go 500 miles to Chicago? You have choices: Bus, Plane, Train (mass transit) or some kind of carpool with like-minded in a fuel-burner. There's a pizza-delivery shop that runs 70's vintage electric cars, and as far as I know, they do so in the winter. (Galactic Pizza) All short-range, out of a garage, and a nightmare for scaling, but it's a START!
We'll make specialized variations for those willing to pay for the range. (Deliveries, patrols, whatever: usually fleets.) You need the range? Turn in your personal car, for a time-share rental of a fleet.
3) But...But...But...
"If I get stuck in the snow in my electric, I could freeze to death..."
Yes, and you might be UNABLE to out run a T-Rex.
STOP with the conspiracy (or movie plot) thinking. We can ALL come up with a hundred reasons, threats, dangers wherein {the novel tech} will horribly fail. This same logic has been applied to resist all kinds of change, and it makes no sense. YES, there are problems, but they're LESS than the problems we're having with {the old tech}.
Don't put your head in the sand, but stop looking for imaginary dangers. These "counter examples" are not even close to whatever the REAL "killer problems" are with {the novel tech}.
CONCLUSION:
Hydrocarbons are FEEDSTOCKS, not fuels. They were historically needed as fuels, but now our point-source problem is killing us. How long can a steamship go burning it's wood furnishings and fittings? We should look back on this period with a wry smile and think of how Ethanol should've illustrated this foolishness: Burning food for fuel is a loser's bet.
We may use hydrogen as the storage-medium (we're really good at thermal conversion on a mass-produced scale); maybe batteries (we're pretty good at chemical conversion and distro on a mass-production scale); maybe fuel-cells (we're learning FAST); maybe ultra-caps (first responders deal with dangerous fuels all the time, KERS has been de-fanged); flywheels; hamsters, bitten by radioactive spiders, to have electric muscles. WHATEVER, but we need to start thinking "electric economy."
Mass transit is the wave of the future. Social travel with your fellow man is all there is to it. Who wants to compare the biggest possible SimCity WITH and WITHOUT mass-transit? Anyone? Anyone? Buehler?
I'm astounded that the Slashdot community isn't leading the charge on this. Come on, fellow early adopters, let's get this rock rolling up the hill! This time for SURE!
Why not fill a box with batteries any/or capacitors?
-----
Consider that the average person parks their car all night; an overnight charge from the 20A outlet in the garage would be plenty for said average person.
But.... But... But, what if they need a quick charge?
Well, my friend, that's why you fill the charger itself with a supply of batteries and capacitors, which it charges and maintains while the vehicle is not charging.
When you need a quick charge, you plug in as normal, then hold down the QUICK CHARGE button as you turn on the charger. Then, the charger uses its internal power storage, supplemented by the house current, to provide a quick charge. After this process completes, the charger allows its batteries to cool, then begins recharging them.
See? It's not that hard. 3 modes, really:
Charge/maintain internal batteries.
Charge/maintain external batteries.
Charge/maintain both internal and external batteries.
Would a system like this work at a "refueling" station? No, they'd need high-draw setups like discussed in this article. This is the quick-charger we'd all have in our garage.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
A stop at the gas station requires you to drive to the gas station, sit around useless, handle cash or credit card or debit card transaction, and expose yourself to the risk of giant sugary caffienated fountain soda.
What, as compared to the zero seconds it takes to fill up with gas?
Since I fill up when about half empty, I'm usually actually filling a tank only for a minute or two.
And as noted, when done I am full - not ready to go for a day and need another recharge.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It will probably rely on some sort of capacitor-based local storage, so it'll always be drawing power from the grid, but at a steady pace awaiting the next charge.
So you pull into a station, and have to wait 20 minutes until the next "pump" is ready.
That fast charging sure is awesome!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Except that charging/discharging times are not linear. Google "RC constant".
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
What about a handcrank like they have on certain radios in Africa? ( http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/05/sonys_handcrank_1.php ) Sure it would take a day's worth of cranking to get enough charge for a mile of driving, but it still could be useful in an emergency.
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Except that charging/discharging times are not linear. Google "RC constant".
That's what I was concerned about at first, however the article makes statements that connect "50% full" (their words) with an ability to "travel a further 50 miles". If the battery is 50% full and thus can travel 50 miles, it seems logical to assume that a battery at a so-called "100% full" would be able to travel 100 miles.
Sure, one might make the argument that the way that the car can use the first "50%" of the stored charge is more or less efficient than the way in which it can use the second "50% of the stored charge. But at that point I think that one could argue that the original wording of "50% full" was misleading and/or just flat-out wrong.
Of course, that's assuming a battery that can be charged to 100% of its spec'd capacity. Gas tanks don't shrink in size over the lifetime of a car, while batteries tend to lose capacity over time.
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