Electric Car Goes 375 Miles On One 6-Minute Charge 603
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."
Charging station? (Score:2, Informative)
What does the charging station use? Is it ultracapacitors?
Also, last time I checked both Germany, Japan and pretty much the rest of the planet used the metric system, so:
Re:Well - let's hope! (Score:4, Informative)
slight? that is more than range than my Mazda 3 gets out of a tank. So figure the energy density of around 10 US gallons of gasoline....
That is a lot of energy to put into a battery in a very short amount of time.
I want a lot more info.
Re:Charging station? (Score:5, Informative)
What does the charging station use? Is it ultracapacitors?
Also, last time I checked both Germany, Japan and pretty much the rest of the planet used the metric system, so:
Oh, come on, now you're being unfair. It's not the rest of the planet, Liberia and Myanmar [wikipedia.org] are also yet to adopt the metric system. Sheesh.
Re:Power required to charge? (Score:5, Informative)
More info (Score:5, Informative)
It's a lithium-polymer battery dubbed "Hummingbird", and it's already in-use in warehouse forklifts. There's more info at dbm-energy.com [dbm-energy.com] and lekker-mobil.com [lekker-mobil.com] (both in German). Still pretty light on details though.
I'd post the link to the FAQ directly, but Slashdot still won't let me paste the URL (yep, Chrome user), and it's way too long to type by hand.
Re:What kind of direct current source? (Score:4, Informative)
No, because you normally don't pit-stop at home for 6 minutes at a time. At home you would charge it at night, likely from a 220v source like your dryer and stove use. What the fast charge is for is to also enable the car to make long trips by having special chargers at gas stations.
Re:Power required to charge? (Score:5, Informative)
From what I've been able to dig up, the battery pack holds about 115 kWh.
In any case, your typical EV these days goes about 4 kWh/mile, which matches up nicely with their 375 mile trip.
So if you want to fill the car with 100 kWh in 6 minutes, you'd need about 1000 kW (ignoring charging losses).
Your typical house in the USA has 240V service with a main panel size ranging between 100A-200A - or 24-48 kW. There is no way you're charging this battery in a short amount of time at home unless you use some sort of buffer.
Your typical EV today uses a Level 2 J1772 EVSE - of which the J1772 specification will handle up to 240V AC at 80A or 19 kW. But the first mass produced EVs on the market (the Leaf/Volt) will only be able to charge at 3.3 kW or so using that standard.
The Tesla Roadster can charge at up to 19 kW, but still uses a slightly different plug (Tesla came before the J1772 standard, but existing Roadsters are expected to be converted over).
"Gas" stations to sustain Level 3 charging (meaning anything that spits out high current DC) are currently being deployed with chargers that will push out a max of 50 kW or so. The Leaf will be the first car to use those chargers and can charge it's 24 kW pack to 80% in 20-30 minutes.
I suspect that some sort of local battery buffer will be needed in most locations to support 1000 kW chargers - or you'll need to be very close to electrical substations and transmission lines.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Power required to charge? (Score:2, Informative)
3 HP is a pretty conservative number for maintaining highway speeds but it illustrates the point very well. To charge in 6 minutes using (euro) household voltage you would have to pump 625amps into it. The cable required for that (by electrical code) would be 2cm in diameter x2 conductors. Not something your average non-superman can lift and bend.
To get the current down to a manageable level and the cable to a reasonable (3awg) size, you would have to put the voltage up to 1500votls (100amps). That leaves you with the electrical equivalent of a loaded gun. A very high potential for ark flash or instant BBQ users. They are going to have to come out with a seriously safe/automated charging station for these cars which is more then likely to offset any savings of owning the car in the first place.
stolen from the comments of TFA (Score:5, Informative)
"Technical Data Audi A2 DBM *
* Subject
Empty weight (including driver) 1260 kg
Perm. Total weight 1600 kg
Battery lithium-iron-polymer (260 Ah/380 V) cell voltage of 3.8 volts
Battery weight about 300 kg
Charging time about 4 hours due to mains phase current in the household (380)
battery requires 6 minutes (future solution)
Life time 2500 charge cycles (without loss of capacity)
= Service life target: 500,000 km
Top speed 160 km / h
5-speed sequential gearbox (race gear: shifting without the clutch)
E-motor 300 Nm torque"
So, the 6 minute charge is future/theoretical limits of the battery. The actual time is 4 hours; which is still very impressive.
Sincerely, Neil
Re:How long does it last? (Score:5, Informative)
It takes 4-6 hours to use up that energy, though -- assuming you're constantly driving. That gives you far more users per power station -- just a peak capacity of 1100.
Re:How long does it last? (Score:3, Informative)
A reasonable estimate for the efficiency of an electric car (according to Wikipedia) is about 15kWh/100km; after converting to more usable units, the 600km capacity means the battery holds 324MJ. A 6 minute charge time gives a 900kW transfer rate
900,000 watts eh? That makes me wonder just how practical this would be outside of the lab. You'd need a really high voltage or a really thick cable to transfer that much wattage into an automobile. The American Wire Gauge only goes up to OOOO according to this table [powerstream.com]. A OOOO conductor is 0.46" thick. Even that insanely heavy cable only goes up to 300 amps. You'd need 3,000 volts to deliver your 900kW on such a cable.
Re:Power required to charge? (Score:3, Informative)
A range of 375 miles at 55 mph is seven hours of driving at speed
According to this German article [tagesschau.de] the car was driving 130km/h, which is more like 80 mph. Which makes this even more impressive.
More Details (Score:3, Informative)
(Stolen from a comment in: http://www.allcarselectric.com/blog/1050863_electric-car-drives-375-miles-at-55-mph-recharges-in-6-minutes [allcarselectric.com] )
Translated from this page: http://adacemobility.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/das-wunder-von-berlin/#more-744 [wordpress.com]
"Technical Data Audi A2 DBM *
* Subject
Empty weight (including driver) 1260 kg
Perm. Total weight 1600 kg
Battery lithium-iron-polymer (260 Ah/380 V) cell voltage of 3.8 volts
Battery weight about 300 kg
Charging time about 4 hours due to mains phase current in the household (380)
battery requires 6 minutes (future solution)
Life time 2500 charge cycles (without loss of capacity)
= Service life target: 500,000 km
Top speed 160 km / h
5-speed sequential gearbox (race gear: shifting without the clutch)
E-motor 300 Nm torque"
Re:How long does it last? (Score:3, Informative)
Nevertheless, you'd still need wires the size of train rails to get that much power transferred in that short of time without melting.
Re:How long does it last? (Score:4, Informative)
0000 is usually represented as 4/0, and spoken as "four aught". Can't say I've ever seen it written out as four zeros before, for that matter. In open air, for short cycles, I'd think it would handle 500A or so, though.
Anyway, there is wire bigger than 4/0, but it uses a different system. 1000 MCM is good for around a thousand amps IIRC (though this is unrelated to it being '1000' MCM - It just means it is 1000 thousand circular mils) [again, probably more in open air and intermittent duty]
But I'm thinking the GP made a false assumption with the 900kW thought - the summary says this is based on an Audi A2, which is *teeny*. Considerably smaller than a VW golf, and the body is (almost?) entirely aluminium.
Re:When can I buy one? (Score:3, Informative)
Designing a one-off prototype by hand is far easier than designing a full fabrication and manufacturing process that can quickly and reliably create multi-thousand dollar vehicles en-masse.
Further, there are a lot of engineering challenges potentially left to come... we know how fast it can charge, and we know how far it can drive. They haven't mentioned how long the battery actually lasts as a battery, possibly because they're facing an engineering hurdle. A truism of batteries is that the faster you charge, the shorter the lifespan of the battery. Lots of non-trivial engineering will also go into making it not explode or cover the passenger compartment in toxic chemicals upon impact.
The sexy engineering may be done. But there is a lot of engineering left to do. Heck, the turnaround time on creating and manufacturing a new Simpsons doll is about a year. Something as big as a car is inherently going to take time.
Re:How long does it last? (Score:2, Informative)
This is, however, trading reliance on oil as a fuel source for reliance on lithium as a storage medium.
Technically... I think oil is just a storage medium as well the only real fuel source is the sun. Oil = storage medium for energy from the sun created by the decay of organic plant/animal materials over millions of years.
I suppose the advantage of lithium is, the lithium isn't really destroyed or combusted in the process of using the stored total energy; there's no gaseous release from the battery itself.
Instead the battery degrades when the cell itself becomes damaged, usually by the electrodes/plates corroding over time, or by things crystallizing on the electrodes.
Re:Rubbish (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Power required to charge? (Score:3, Informative)
If the car takes 3 HP (2 kW) to drive at highway speed
HA! You are an order of magnitude too low. Otherwise we'd all be installing 50cc moped motors into our cars. I think 30-40 HP is what it takes to overcome air resistance, rolling resistance, and the incline of the terrain when that comes along.
I've driven more than 130 kph (80 mph) in a car that barely HAD 40 HP. I don't know how much horse powers you need to keep a Hummer running at 55 mph, but driving a Audi A2 (which is a pretty small car) at that speed will take much less. The most energy efficient A2 produced was rated at below 4 l/100km (i.e. about 80 mpg).
As others mentioned, the article is short on facts. I can drive 300 miles at 55 mph (average) and spend 0 kWh, as long as the road is downhill all the way, or if I use a sail. That fact alone is worthless.
The car was driven from Munich to Berlin. So it was no hypothetical value, but a real drive on a real road. Munich is about 520m, and Berlin at abut 100m, so you gain 420m of potential energy over the course of 600 km, which is basically nothing.
Regarding the charging current requirement: The (german) sources I've read all talk about a 20 Minute recharge time, not a 6 minute time. Additionally in Europe, you usually get 2 phases 230V each. Combined, the involved current seems to be a lot more realistic, even if still a bit steep. Unfortunately, I didn't find any hard data on the capacity and energy density of the battery, so a lot of the calculations has to remain guessworks
Re:How long does it last? (Score:3, Informative)
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. ...
Er, no. It means were down to 825 cars in any given 6 minute period. It is usual to find 240 such 6 minute periods in any (Earth) day thereby allowing for approx 200000 such EV charge events (198000, but as we're using wet finger math(s) please excuse me if I round up at this point). I would suggest we could comfortably halve that number and be ecstatic about 100000 EV's driving around a city! Hell, 50K EV's would be brilliant!
What's the average commute I wonder? I furthest I ever had to commute was about 60 miles (30 each way) so I'd have to charge one of these suckers up (less than!) once a week if it was my car, and the same for my Electric MGF [epowercc.co.uk] friend too. We could probably assume that most people's commute (or 'daily drive' for the non-workers) is (considerably) less than 375 miles anyway. If we plump for once a week we can multiply up the (already halved!) 100000 accordingly ... 500000 EV's. Hell, even if we go for 50000 a day that's still capacity for 250000 a week!
Also, the article says the vehicle can be charged in 6 minutes but it doesn't say it has to be - what's the betting there'd be a cost benefit (and maybe battery life benefit) from charging more slowly, like in 6 to 8 hours overnight, for example.
If you finally factor in the ideas about keeping such EVs which are not currently in use attached to the grid and allowing the grid to request power back to smooth out power use spikes (with suitable payments to the EV owner, and the proviso that the owner can specify a minimum level on the vehicle in case they need to drive it - but if it only takes 6 mins to charge it that becomes less of an issue!) we could see the Max Load requirement for a city actually be lowered because the city grid can pull power from the EVs that are not in use (have hookups at places of work and other car parks maybe too?)!
That it seems too good to be true is another issue, but it sounds bloody good to me!
Re:Rubbish (Score:2, Informative)
Why the hell do you presume 50% efficiency? That's absolutely atrocious. We can get 85% from ATX switchmode supplies, and those are so under spec'ed that the current folk wisdom recommends supplies rated at twice what any sensible single-socket pc consumes, not to mention the economies of scale.
Furthermore, your estimate of the amount of power needed to remove the heat is incredibly pessimistic. Think of all the pad mount transformers around large buildings. Those are 800-2000 kVA, and every single one I've seen has been passively cooled. Thermal management in large-scale power electronics systems is not a new problem, and is a well-developed industry in itself. The only place heat dissipation might be a concern is in the batteries themselves. This is, of course, the storage efficiency: the one consideration you decided to neglect!
Considering the charging problem, the obvious approach is to charge in series and discharge in parallel. Assuming a single drive motor, a plurality of prismatic Li-ion cells could be connected in 3*N stacks of 400 Volts or so (600V IGBTs). Each phase of the motor could then be driven by N phase legs (like a class B amplifier) with their outputs combined in parallel. Current sharing is insured in the short term by high-frequency chokes, and in the long term by using current-mode control in the phase legs. The current-sharing ratio could also be actively controlled to ensure equal discharge of the batteries.
Alternatively, a two-stage approach is used, in which the several battery segments feed separate phases of a polyphase boost converter, supplying a regulated bus voltage to a traditional voltage source three phase inverter. This provides more fine-grained control of the battery charge state and the advantages of a tested design, at the expense of efficiency and a substantially greater component count.
For charging, the battery pack itself would consist of prismatic cells with large contacts on opposite faces. Spaces between the cells would allow charging electrodes to be inserted. These electrodes would consist of brass plates sandwiching a piece of foam to provide contact pressure. Said plates could incorporate coolant channels through which heat could be removed from the cells.
Re:How long does it last? (Score:3, Informative)
It is quite trivial actually, the lithium isn't consumed, deposits develop and the (cheap) electrolytes degrade, it is a simple (relatively) chemical/mechanical process to clean the lithium and rebuild the cell. Not something you do in place, but every 5 years or so you get your battery exchanged. Less work than replacing your tires or shocks. And since you arn't buying any more expensive lithium, it probably won't be that much. Lithium is certainly a fully recyclable resource. And it is a whole lot cheaper than the Palladium that is the best bet for hydrogen storage at the moment.
Re:How long does it last? (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe the reason why people struggle with it is because they actually do the math.
Let's assume the local gas station just around the corner fuels around 200 cars a day over a 16 hour period. It decides to switch over to an all-electric recharging system. Furthermore, let's assume the customers all drive fast charging electric cars that require 1 MW for 6 minutes. Just to make it interesting, let's also assume the charging is completely lossless.
So, that former gas station would need to supply 1E6 * 6 * 60 * 200 joules every day to recharge those vehicles. Over a 24 hour period, it would be pulling 833 kW from the mains to trickle charge the battery array at the station, or 3472 A @ 240 V. A modern nuclear power plant can supply 1.1 GW on a continuous basis, so that means the entire output of that nuclear power plant, if devoted to charging electric vehicles, would be sufficient to supply 1,320 converted gas stations.
Now assuming that the average driver refuels his vehicle once a week, that means that those 1,320 refueling stations are sufficient to service 1.85M electric vehicles. There are estimated to be 251M passenger vehicles in the U.S. alone, so we only need to build 136 modern 1.1 GW nuclear power plants just to keep those vehicles running.
But of course, I assumed lossless energy transport, storage, and charging. Realistically, the entire process may be 50% efficient if we are lucky. So actually we need to build 272 brand new nuclear power plants, and that local converted gas station will be pulling an average of 1.67 MW from the grid.
Now frankly, the total added generation capacity is not that outrageous. The U.S. electric generation capacity is about 750 GW, so adding an extra 300 GW is expensive, but doable. On the other hand, efficiently supplying a continuous average of 1.67 MW of electric power to every gas station in the U.S., including those in remote areas and on remote roads, is a complete pipe dream unless someone comes up with room temperature superconductors.
Electric vehicles will work fine if they are trickle-charged nightly from home mains, and used for short commutes each day. But for long-haul trips, or fast refueling of large numbers of vehicles, nothing is going to replace chemical fuels anytime soon.
Re:How long does it last? (Score:5, Informative)
2500 cycles before degradation according to their youtube video.
Re:Don't charge but swap (Score:3, Informative)
(now, there's an opening for you!)
Re:How long does it last? (Score:3, Informative)
Parent is spot on, good summary.
I'll just add that we should also factor in the electricity that is saved in NOT refining and distributing petrol for those 500,000 EVs.
Re:How long does it last? (Score:3, Informative)
The article states that it is using the same types of batteries packs that are currently used in electric fork lifts in modern warehouses. As such, they should have a large charge-discharge cycle range and not be terribly expensive as they aren't new technology, but existing technology.
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Rubbish (Score:4, Informative)
So... 30kW at 60MPH is the claim.
The second generation Honda Insight has a drag coefficient of 0.25, a frontal area of approximately 26 square feet, a curb weight of up to 2,730 pounds.
From those specs: Power to maintain 60MPH is 13.9 HP - 10kW.
Your math is off by a factor of at least 3 right out of the gate.
=Smidge=
Re:How long does it last? (Score:3, Informative)
Yea that would be cool but...
But the 6 minute recharge time is fiction. That is the "theoretical" maximum at some time in the future. A poster on a site actually did the math.
"Giving them a very efficient 60kWhr for their 375 mile drive, you would need a 600kW feed to recharge that in 6 minutes. Even off a 14.4kV main, that would require a 40A current."
Wow 40A at 14.4 kv.......
So that would take about a 3" cable and the rectifier you describe would be an impressive beast to say the least.
So what we are talking about isn't that far removed from a set of jumper cables for a nuclear aircraft carrier or the Starship Enterprise.
Re:How long does it last? (Score:3, Informative)
7% is the power line loss. Then you need AC-to-DC conversion of the power, and a current control regulator that can handle thousands of amperes of current. That's probably another 10% loss. Then (unfortunately), the recharging of the battery itself generates significant amounts of heat within the battery, as does the discharging process. (Ever noticed how hot your lithium laptop battery gets?) Assuming that you had 100 kW of waste heat during that 1 MW fast recharge, you'd cook the battery, the car, and the occupants inside it unless you provide some means of refrigeration of the battery during charging, adding to even more loss.
It all adds up. You can quibble over the exact numbers, but the energy loss will be significant throughout the entire charging / usage cycle.
Okay, so assuming perfectly lossless recharging and a refueling cycle of 10 days instead of 7, we're still talking about 600 kW delivered on a continuous basis to every refueling station in the U.S. That's 2500 A @ 240 V, and that's a best case calculation. Of course, there's no way you're going to shove that much current through a 240 V power line - the I^2R losses would ruin you. So instead, you'd need a 10 kV high-voltage transmission line to each and every station, to drop the current to 60 A. How practical do you think that would be?
From my viewpoint, there's absolutely nothing wrong with building that many nuclear power plants. I only wish we had started 20 or 30 years ago. I'm as pro-nuke as you can get, but even I can't see adding that much nuclear capacity over the next 20 years. Too many people will fight it.
But my point remains. We are not going to replace chemical fuels anytime soon. Electric cars will have their place, and I for one would love an affordable plug-in hybrid. But there's simply no way that we will switch over to an all-electric vehicle fleet anytime soon. You cannot argue away the numbers, or the laws of physics.
Re:How long does it last? (Score:3, Informative)
Please hand in your geek card. Or at least learn the difference between power (in W) and energy (in J or Wh).