The Old Empires' plan to cut out Tesla
 

BMW, Daimler (parent of Mercedes-Benz and Smart), VW Group (Audi and Porsche brands) and Ford are planning, designing and will be building an EV ultra fast-charging network. They are initially laying out their network of an UF DC charging stations along Europe's main highways. Their first network will have 400 locations available by 2020. Their chargers will operate up to 350 kw, more than twice of Tesla Supercharger stations. The network will be based on the Combined Charging System (CCS) protocol currently used in a lower-power version by all four makers. The global group will set the software and physical standards for the CCS specification, and working on the upgrades from the current 50kw to their planned 350 kw maximum spec. This system will also be their next zero-emission infrastructure for North America as well. This proprietary and exclusive network that will NOT connect to Tesla EVs.

https://www.thrillist.com/cars/natio...charge-network

Ahhh a cartel has formed to combat tesla.

Only thing I see is 350kw far exceeds the capacity of residential overhead 4160v 3 phase line that are pretty much everywhere.

These would likely need to be tired into intermediate transmission lines usually around 50 to 100kv.

Then they throw in renewable power.
Don't they realize wind and solar don't deal with load spikes real well?

They'll just use a boatload of Tesla's Powerwalls! ;)

On the one hand I like the idea because more charging stations means better EV adoption, which means I can hopefully buy a used 200+ mile range EV sooner. On the other hand, having more than just a few charging standards will potentially be a huge pain.

The load peaks will probably be fixed with local battery buffering.

A CCS adapter would not be difficult for Tesla to manufacture, at least at their 150kW levels. Stepping down might present a challenge. Thrillist (?) also missed that Tesla is part of the CCS consortium since April (I cannot yet post links since I only have 3 posts, but a simple Google search for CCS and Tesla will get you the results you need).

It's weird they were called "stubbornly independent" since they've been open to sharing their charging network since its inception. No manufacturers took them up on it, though - likely because it wouldn't feel very good to sell a BMW and have them latch up to a charging pedestal with "Tesla" branded on it. But Tesla also open sourced their IP. Stubbornly independent might reflect their focus on vertical integration, though. They seem to shed suppliers rapidly when things go wrong, and just bring it all in house.

My feeling about "Thrillist" is that they're big fans of clicks.

kinda sad. I hoped we would get a worldwide standard, like the usb connectors on phones.

Why not form a group with all of them, have a screen on the charger that has a changing logo, depending what model charges XD

The idea of using a battery to supply 350kw to charge a battery is really kind of dumb.
Unless you are trying to increase cost and complexity to increase the size of the government grant you are after.

Depending on where the charge stations are ... there is a power bill penalty for loads that go from 0 (no charging) to 350 kw (charging) in a minute or two ... or perhaps occasionally to 3.5 MW (10 chargers at 350 KW in one location). In that context, local energy storage may be cost effective. Batteries, supercaps (eventually), or perhaps even a local natural gas generator .. which is not exactly green but may be practical ...

Our power bill at work is roughly half for consumption and half for peak demand. So we pay $0.10 for the power when we use it, and $0.10 for the max power that we have used in the past 10 months. When we are down for maintenance, we still pay about half of what we do when we are running, because we COULD start up and use all that power and cause the grid to have to react (!!). Power companies suck, in slightly different ways than Oil companies suck. But they still suck.

If you don't like the power company then go off grid.
Don't like the oil companies, get an electric vehicle.

To buy enough battery capacity to charge let's say help charge 1 vehicle at 350kw would want a 700v system because this is a common inverter voltage. The bank would have to be made up of at least 97 12v batteries rated for 225 amp hours.
That many batteries could supply around 70kw of charging power. So you may want more like 2 or 3 of these banks per vehicle.
Each battery would weigh around 130lb, cost $400 each.
Each battery bank would cost around $40,000, contain around 10,000 pounds of lead and would need to be replaced around every 5 years. Just to charge 1 or 2 cars at 1 location. The battery houses would have to be climate controlled because that much charge and discharge would make a lot of heat.
So it's a bad idea and dumb idea.

I'm assuming none of you who think it's a good idea to "use a battery bank" even tried to figure how much battery it would take to supply even a portion of 350kw?

NRG EVgo, the largest US public DC charging network will be installing the first 350 kW charging station in Baker, CA. The Baker terminal is perfectly located, in the middle of the Mojave Desert at the junction of Interstate 15 and Death Valley Road. A well-known midway resting/eating/fueling point strategically located between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Those gambling/weekend vacationers in their EVs could get quickly charged up while they finish their gyros at the Mad Greek or have more jalapeno poppers at the Jack in the Box.
The Baker EVgo station will have BOTH charging protocols, CHAdeMO and CCS connectors.

EVgo Installing First 350 kW Ultra Fast Public Charging Station In The US

It opens next year.
I see it has a solar canopy. Why?

You mean the way that every single device I have (three phones, two cameras, a music player and an Arduino board - oh, and a tablet) that uses a USB connector has a different, incompatible plug on the device?

I don't know where you're getting these numbers. Do you care to share the source? Are you also assuming peak shavers would be lead acid? Is that where your lead numbers come from?

Tesla already uses battery banks at some Superchargers to peak shave. It's a cost effective solution, and it's not required as an alternative to the grid. It's supplemental. They're lithium-ion NMC packs, of course.

If the grid is firing up peaker plants to generate more energy to meet demand, that energy is, by nature, more expensive. It's also dirty. So using batteries made of mostly recyclable materials is quite arguably not "dumb."

Maybe I'm misreading what you're saying.

Don't know about power bills. That depends on whether the power company is able to pass on the cost to the owners of the chargers, or has to spread it out over the whole customer base.

The real problem is the technical one of system stability. Simplistically, everything in a power has to run at the same frequency (60 Hz in the US). The grid has inertia, both in the rotating mass of generators and the electrical equivalent, but this has limits. Suddenly dumping too much of a load at one point of the grid can drag down its frequency, causing it to destabilize and disconnect from the rest of the grid. Worst case, the instability can propagate, bringing down the whole grid.

Seems like a good way to deal with this would be to use flywheel storage, since that has built-in inertia, and doesn't need inverters to go from DC to AC, like batteries or capacitors.

I am the source. I work with high power electronics like this almost every day.
The lead acid specs are from Trojan battery and the inverters i talk about would be using existing inverter technology with industry standard voltages.
They would use lead acid because there is simply not enough lithium to make batteries to do all this. Sure tesla can build a few demo models. But scale it up to global size and build all the electric cars using lithium batteries. I don't think so.

For example when the Toyota prius sales first took off they were building so many NiMH batteries there was a global shortage and Ni prices shot up to record high of $30 per pound.

At least the lead acid batteries get recycled. The lithium batteries are chucked into a land fill when they're no good.

I have actual real world experience with inverters that handle 350kw loads. I work on 500hp electric motors that use pretty close to 350kw.
Where I work we have 9 of 500hp and bigger motors and we have our own 250kv line and our own substation, which cost around 10 million dollars just for the substation. The local farm and dairy cartel spent untold millions of dollars when they bought our 250kv line in 12 miles for us. A smaller sub station could be used for a car charging station but would still cost a few million dollars.
Each 350kw inverter charger should cost under $100,000.
The 500hp inverter drivevariable frequently drives cost around $70,000, a lot of the same stuff would go into both a VFD and battery charger. So we should assume cost would be close to the same.
Each inverter power source would be the size of very large refrigerator and require climate control.

That's why I find the cute little solar roof top charing station a joke. They are not showing the sub substation supplying power the inverters, they are not showing the inverter control room with hvac sitting on top or next to it.
It looks like false or misleading advertising at best.

The top solar-gathering region of the US; the Solar One/Two (20MW) is 95 miles, Mojave Solar Project (nameplate capacity of 280 MW) is 89 miles, Ivanpah Solar Generating System (392 MW) is 47 miles away, Desert Sunlight Solar Farm (550MW) 100 miles, Copper Mountain (150MW) 100 miles, Nellis Solar (14MW) 100 miles and Antelope Valley Solar Ranch (266 MW) 120 miles. Many more around the Southwest.

Lithium is extremely common. It's the third element in the periodic table. The supply chain has to grow and mature, but it's not scarce.


This is also false. Lithium-ion batteries, when depleted beyond their useful capacity, have significant economic value. This 7-year old article details some of the progress that was made at the time. Tesla has since announced a closed-loop battery recycling program that will recover all of the lithium from recycled batteries, along with much of the other valuable metals. I believe the last number achieved was 80%. This also takes pressure off of your first concern, above.

Here, we can agree to some extent. The solar canopy (Tesla has a few of them here in California) adds really nice shade when you're charging. Other than that, it's of marginal benefit aside from optics. It's not sizable enough to make much of a dent. Of course, they've got grid-tied inverters that are not in an HVAC control room. They're externally mounted next to the stacked chargers.

OTOH, if you've got a roof in a nice sunny spot, why not put PV on it? Especially when you own a company that installs solar :-)

Not a bad point. From an energy perspective, I think the energy saved by keeping cars from having to run their AC likely outweighs the generation. But I'm all for more PV installations.

I saw an article some time around 2013 or 2014 talking about how it was not economicly feasible to recycle lithium batteries and how most of the ones we think are being recycled are going to the land fill.
Another article from this year or last year recommends that used up hybrid and electric car lithium batteries that still hold some power be used as power grid storage storage since recycling wasn't feasible.
I never said recycling these batteries wasn't possible.
Announcing and doing are 2 different things.
The fact that tesla announced they want to do a closed loop battery recycling thing is proof there is no effective large scale lithium battery recycling going on.

Why would a car have to run the A/C while charging? Or do you mean that there are EV owners just as stupid as the IC owners who leave their vehicles idling in parking lots for the A/C?

Two reasons. First, fast charging creates a lot of heat and the battery pack needs cooling. Second, and what I really meant, was that if you go back to a car that's 120 degrees inside from sitting in the sun, your AC is going to be chugging away for the first 20 minutes or so once you get on the road. That's unnecessary consumption.

You might review EVTV's solar DC charging system. EVTV Friday Show - August 5, 2016. Fastcharge your Tesla using Sunshine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98-AqRjBpMU
They found it's cheaper than the $50K to bring in 3-phase power.

I would be surprised if running lines that could support single car 350kw charging costs less than 50,000 per mile.

Do we really need 350kw charging everywhere? Superchargers put out 120kw which is about 170 miles worth of range in 30 minutes. That should be plenty for most charging, and making the cars more efficient will increase the effective rate of range increase with the same wattage.

oil pan 4 -- Downtown Cape Girardeau, MO. You can see in the opening titles their tright next to the bridge and government offices.

vskid3 --I believe the formulation is 'Too much is not enough'. I'd worry though, it's like a lightning bolt running through you hand. :eek:

When people say "we don't have the infrastructure for it" well with ludicrous speed chargers we dont.

At least tesla was smart enough to do some math and figure out that 120kw chargers could be integrated into a lot of places with existing service with out problem.

I'm assuming that there is still no mention of how much all this is going to cost?

I'm assuming you already know about "demand charges" that electric companies levy on industrial consumers, but some people don't...

Electricity supply has to meet electricity demand, at all times. As mentioned above, the demand and supply has a certain amount of "inertia", which is to say that electric companies can't just supply more electricity instantly. Fortunately, demand for electricity also tends to have a certain amount of inertia.

If demand for electricity spikes faster than the utility can supply it, you get a brownout. If the opposite occurs, and you get a sudden drop in demand, the excess power must be instantly absorbed by something, often times dumped to ground.

It costs more to not only supply the high demand infrastructure for these chargers, but the overall balance of supply/demand on the grid suffers as well. This is why demand charges are billed to industrial consumers.

Using batteries smooths out these substantial demand peaks by acting as a buffer to the grid. The batteries can supply peak demands while presenting itself as a more steady draw on the grid. There is a tradeoff in the cost of the batteries (one time cost) vs the cost of installing higher demand capacity from the grid (monthly recurring cost).

This reminds me a bit of the apple lightning connector vs usb-c.

Where I work we use more power every day than a 2 story 2400sq.ft. house with a family of 5 uses in 12 years.
And they are not shy about spending several million dollars to lower the bills. 3 expansions to conserve natural gas, power but mostly to save water, all no less than 10 million each.
The 700hp ammonia compressor motors draw up to 1,100 amps of 480 on start up and they cycle on and off all the time.
500hp motors draw 500 to 700 amps depending on if they are driving compressors or turbo fans.
We don't use batteries.
Bank maintenance would cost more than it would save.

Heat = wasted energy, no? Which kinda tanks the efficiency of your EV. Also, cooling the battery pack should not, with proper design, necessitate running the A/C to cool the passenger cabin.

Not as much unnecessary consumption as keeping the A/C running for the whole time the car's charging. Of course a roof or other sunshade helps. So does leaving the windows open.

I work for a NG distribution company where i work directly with meters and consumption data. We have several ethanol producers that use around 400,000 cubic feet of gas per hour, typical house furnaces use 100 cubic feet per hour and run intermittently. A small efficiency increase goes a long way.

If these chargers are going to deliver 350kw, they pretty much have to be installed near hv transmission lines. Even at 7kv street lines it would pull 50 amps if it were a perfect conversion.

Then the next question (which I really hope has been addressed) can the current infrastructure handle the increase in demand from widespread adoption of electric vehicles? Particularly, those that want to fast charge everytime they "fill up".

The system is already strained in the late afternoon on hot summer days when people get home and crank their a/c down, now charging their cars at the same time? I think the "connected" car is going to need to be present very early on to know when the system has capacity to charge it's battery.

This is only a problem in places ran by idiots. Idiots who think they are helping the environment by not having enough power generation capacity to meet demand.

On the other hand Texas does not have this problem.

The most economical energy storage isn't pumped water; it's an inclined electric railroad. Uphill for storage, downhill for power.

The DIY version might be barbell weights suspended by cables on a flagpole.

This 350kW number is fun for them to throw around and get people excited about but no car can use this much charge rate. It would need a 1000v battery to keep the current down to 350 amps. And full liquid cooled contacts and cables. But it will be nice to have charge stations with the massive high kv grid connection and sub station needed to quick charge several cars at the same time at whatever the max rate they can take. I did read an article about the European qick charge start up that is accepting proposals for sites and the main consideration is access to high voltage power lines and easy access to major highway travel. And they all have grid scale Lithium battery storage units to smooth the demand. here is a post from the Leaf forum.
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350kW at 1000V. This was not mentioned. At 400V it is just 140kW. Slightly faster than Supercharger.
BUT that speed is only possible with liquid cooled pins in the plug. Without that extra it is less than 100kW.

1000V packs are big questionmark on small vehicles due to extra complexity.

Also charging at 350kW is not possible due to thermal limitations (car is not capable to extract heat
at that speed from the pack). Imagine at 90% efficiency 35kW of heat. Not going to work.
Even with absurdly massive AC compressor there is not enough surface area for radiators.

I've not even heard of patents about getting heat out of the car.
With my professional opinion, 350kW charging speed is not going to happen with normal cars (at least not within a decade).
I highly doubt 200kW (at least 10 minutes) will work within 5 years.

With buses, semis, ships - definitely possible.

Also another limitation of the lithium chemistry itself. 100kWh battery can do around 120kW (Tesla).
200kWh pack could do around 240kW. But 100kWh pack (no matter the voltage) will not charge at 240kW rate without
MASSIVE improvement. Voltage per cell would tip safe limit instantly.

If you're looking at overall efficiency, yes. Charging more slowly is more efficient from an energy-only perspective. The AC compressor is shared between the battery cooling system and the cabin on my vehicles. That doesn't mean the cabin is being cooled while the battery is cooled. On the contrary, when charging in 110F+ temperatures this summer, cabin cooling was significantly limited when I returned the car. The trade-off here is fast charging = convenience on trips. And having the pack temperature managed is paramount to longevity.

There's also the matter of range. You'd rather pre-cool your cabin on shore power than when you're on pure battery, at least if you've got a long haul ahead of you. That's less important than pre-heating the pack and the cabin, which obviously takes much more energy.

Again, while the cabin fans aren't running and cooling the cabin, the compressor is indeed necessary for pack stability. A shaded spot is much more efficient for the vehicle and the cabin. If it has PV on it, fine. My argument was that the shade is beneficial. Hopefully I've been clearer.

Agreed that none of the present EV's may be able to charge at 350KW.

Fast-charging a 100 KW-H pack in 20 minutes needs 300 KW. But there is a point of diminishing return, just like all engineering. If 200 KW or 250 KW is reasonably priced and does most of what is needed, that's a good place to start. Having the charging standard impose the limits is short-sighted ... and they have all done that at least once already. If we can't get to 350 KW for a while - that's fine by me.

700V for a DC bus voltage is quite common in the US when fed with 480/460V three phase. 1000V DC bus is common in Canada with 600/575V three phase. I don't have experience in Europe, but we have some european equipment that runs up to 690V three phase, so that's over 1000V DC.

My point - these are already common voltages in industry. It will take some engineering to make that safe for vehicles. Again - avoid building the limitations into the charging standard. Aim HIGH. Let the designs strive to reach them.

350A is only 400 HP at 600 VAC. We would normally run parallel 2/0 conductors so that they are easier to handle, but single conductor 500 MCM cable will run 350A 24/7/365, with a 110F ambient temperature. The cables are hard to handle - I would expect an automated system to engage the charger to the vehicle. If you are expecting intermittent use (like a charger does) with temperature monitoring of the conductor a single run of 2/0 is reasonable. But as you mention further down, the connector is the issue.

My point - the cabling is not particularly difficult. A cable-way can take most of the weight, like the monster-sized TV mounts that let you raise/lower/swing the TVs. The difficulty is in the connectors and the user interface. And I'll repeat myself a bit - aim HIGH and let the designs or the materials or the connectors be the limitation - NOT THE STANDARD

I guess that is for smarter people than I to deal with. Maintaining a large enough contact surface to prevent heating while making the connector light enough for a consumer to move around ...

You have mentioned complexity a few times. There is more insulation at 1000V than there is at 400V. Above 1000V there are corona issues that need to be dealt with. The techs that troubleshoot need better equipment and a bit more training. The contactors and electronics are more expensive. But I'm obviously missing something on the complexity.

I'm not familiar with this issue.

If your battery is charging at 90% efficiency ... it's time to retire it! I would expect 97% would be a bad day. Again - I must be missing something.

This is not consistent with my limited experience. You are listing charge rates just over 1C. NiCd, NiMh, LiFePO4, LiMnO(whatever the Leaf uses), Lithium Polymer ... every rechargeable chemistry I can come up with ... can charge faster than 2C. I must be missing something.

The main point is that Tesla is already pushing the limits of charge rate at 120kW for a 400v battery via any reasonable cable/ connector a normal person could be expected to deal with. 1.2C is not too bad on a big Tesla but this would be 2C on a Bolt and 5C on Leaf which would cut the cycle life substantially. The Leaf doesn't even have liquid cooling in the pack and is limited to 50kW/ 2C. These are not hobby batteries with projected cycle lives of 300. I would really hope to get 2000, 80% cycles out of a $100,000 Tesla to 70% capacity.
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800v packs are needed to charge at 300kW such as the upcoming Porsche Mission E but the motor winding insulation and the components in all of the the controllers get excedingly expensive and bulky.

VW Group putting the 350kW charging as the strategic basis of its Porsche Mission E. Production by 2019.

Wolgang Hatz, Porsche’s R&D boss, “We don’t do a car because Tesla has done a Model S. We have our own plans. The time was not right before now to bring a pure battery car onto the market. But now the time is right.”

Oliver Blume, Chairman of the Executive Board of Porsche AG on 800v or 400volt 'Porsche Turbo Charging.' “There are two decisive aspects for us: ultra-fast charging and placing the charging stations at the right positions,” “Together, these two factors enable us to travel in an all-electrically powered car as in a conventional combustion engine vehicle. As automobile manufacturer, we actively shape our future, not only by developing all-electrically powered vehicles but by building up the necessary infrastructure as well.”


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO3tgh-48JE