Electric Car Goes 375 Miles On One 6-Minute Charge

thecarchik writes with this quote from AllCarsElectric: "We all know that battery packs are the weakest link in electric vehicles. Not only are they heavy and expensive, but they take a long time to recharge and on average can only provide around 100 miles per charge. A German-based company has changed all that with a new vehicle capable of driving up to 375 miles at moderate highway speeds. ... It doesn't end there. The company responsible for the battery pack, DBM Energy, claims a battery pack efficiency of 97 percent and a recharge time of around 6 minutes when charged from a direct current source. Unlike the small Daihatsu which was heavily modified by a team in Japan earlier this year that achieved a massive 623 miles on a charge at around 27 mph, the Audi A2 modified by DBM Energy was able to achieve its 375 miles range at an average speed of 55 mph."

Comments

How long does it last?

[rossdee]

How many charge-discharge cycles will this battery last, and how expensive is it?

Re:How long does it last?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people struggle with this? To provide the charging current needed to charge in 6 minutes, all you need is a charging station that is topped up by the grid but uses a large battery (of batteries). The peak current to charge the car is taken care off by the batteries and the average daily usage at the station is supplied by the grid.

Similarly, you could have a small charging station at home that consists of a battery similar to what is in the car and a trickle top up system that take 24 hours or more to charge off the low current house supply.

No rocket (or nuclear) science needed!

Re:How long does it last?

[AGMW]

Ok, let's say those figures are correct. Now let's assume that the average nuke plant has about 25% of it's output used for other means - a conservative estimate. That means we're down to 825 cars. ...

That means we're down to 825 cars for any given 6 minute period. There are 240 such "6 minute periods" per day, so if everyone with one of these cars religiously (fully) charged the muthers every day there'd be capacity for approx 200000 cars (198000 actually, but we're using wet finger math(s) so please forgive the rounding up). We could easily halve that number and still be happy with 100000 EV's in a city!

Let's now assume that those 825 people don't drive 375 miles every day, so don't have to have their 6 minutes in the sun every day. My daily commute was somewhere in the region of 60 miles (30 each way), suggesting that those car owners may only be charging up once a week? (as per my Electric MGF friend) ... so could we have 500000 EV's now? :-)

Let's also assume that whilst it is possible to charge in 6 mins it can also be done overnight and there may be some cost-benefit and/or battery life benefit for doing so ...

If we also factor in the concepts bandied about where such EVs are left connected to the grid and the grid can request power to be fed back into the grid to smooth out demand spikes (with suitable payments to the EV owner, and the proviso that the vehicle will retain an owner specified charge sufficient to drive it - though with the 6 min quick charge that might be less of a problem anyway!) ...

Re:Power required to charge?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know anyone with a gasoline pump at their house either.

It is a mystery how people are able to drive cars without running out of fuel.

Re:Finally looking practical...

[shaitand]

The planet doesn't give a damn. It's us who are fucked.

Re:When can I buy one?

[blueg3]

The core engineering require to build a proof-of-concept prototype is a small fraction of the engineering work necessary to put it into readily-available, commercial products.