387
World’s first ‘superfast’ battery offers 400km range from 10 mins charge
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
387 points (92.5% liked)
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Which is great. No need to poo poo it.
However. Fast charge isn't really necessary unless you are on a long journey over 400 km and need to charge on route or you drive a lot. Eg taxi Uber etc.
Best thing ever industry can do for planet would be a 350km car that's cheap. That's really what most car users require. They drive to and from work and most drive less than 100km a day.
Just like a phone you charge over night and don't need oooodles of range.
Anyone going on long trips really should be using a train with another vehicle if required at the destination.
Truckers are a different story and should be separated from the day to days if average car users
There is a large amount of apartment renters that don't have access to the preferable overnight slow charging. Fast charging like this article is talking about could be a game changer for that segment of buyers.
Huge issue I know. One of the largest barriers to owning Evs. On street charging needs an overhaul and this is where you'd run into a lot of problems.
Given enough time and demand there’s no reason apartment complexes can’t outfit their parking spots with slow chargers. Slow charging a car is much less demanding (and efficient) than trying to fast charge.
Our appartement block just voted down getting an engineer in to see what would be required to have car charging infrastructure installed. To be honest I get it, owners don't want to pay for that for the hypothetical electric car owner in the future.
You're talking decades away. Until then better fast charging offers options for apartment/rental dwellers.
I mean we could just require apartment owners to install them
It would be easier to invent a better battery than to get landlords to do anything that wouldn't maximize their profit.
It's not that simple. In many countries the current electricity infrastructure can't handle everyone charging their EVs. It'll fry the wires. Countries like Finland have unusual advantage in this due to our grid being designed for electric heating, electric saunas and people using block heaters on their cars in the winter. This is not the case in most of the world.
But that 350km should not be best case summer. It should be worst case -10°C at ~250-300km
Absolutely. Has to be actually real life range. Not best case in a lab with nobody in it with everything turned off.
350km up and down hills in hot/ cold weather with 2 adults and a child in back. Charging phones playing music acceleration and braking.
Totally disagree. I think fast charging is the biggest roadblock we have in making electric cars more popular. Just think how much time filling cars with petrol takes, charging should also take similar time. 10-15 mins would be ok if you also can have breakfast in that time.
But you don't need it. You need a vehicle that gets you a to b. You can charge when you aren't driving.
Electric cars will be common once they reach price parity with ice. Why buy an ice that helps prop up the profits of oil cartels.
If price can get close to ice with good enough range. Cuts out every going to a petrol station again and solar panels will reduce your transport costs. Plus added bonus of less moving parts and no oil changes ever again.
Plus less noise.
It doesn't matter if 95% of the time you don't need fast charging. When making a major purchase like a car, most people will consider their extreme use cases. Whether that's logical or not doesn't factor in
And where would the vehicle sit and charge while I'm not driving it?
Is this a stupid question or ?
Imagine I'm a car salesman who doesn't give a shit about EVs. I just want to sell a car.
"This car right here, you can fill 'er up in 1 hour! Oh but this feller, well she only takes 60 seconds, and has twice the range to boot!"
The average person isn't going to care that the first car is an EV and the second car is gas-powered.
Most people can't afford to get charging set up at home for overnight charging, either. You're also not considering emergency scenarios where people won't have time to wait an hour for their vehicles to charge.
The scenario you're imagining is an ideal scenario, not working with the current reality we have right now. The industry is working on making EVs charge extremely quickly because they believe it is a major selling point for their vehicles. Which, for the average person, it absolutely is. If EVs want to outsell gas-powered vehicles consistently, they need to meet the basics of being able to fill up quickly and having identical range.
Isn't. Just like phone makers are pushing fast charging. Nice to have but not required.
You and everyone else on this car forum forget. Cars are luxury products that have only been around 100 years.
We managed before cars. Since the beginning of humans we've managed without electricity cars and most other things. We can change the use
The average person you are trying to sell a basic car to is not going to agree with the 'it's just a luxury product' when their car is a crucial component of how they get to their work, their home, how they pickup their kids, how they pickup their groceries, and how they visit their family.
And the Amish manage today without them as well. I don't want to be Amish.
If you truly are trying to sell EVs to people over ICE cars, you need to meet them where they are at. And, as the person above stated, fill-up times, range, and purchase price are all crucial selling points you need to compete on.
You are making my point for me.
These are use cases for the current system. A brand new system that didn't exist 50 years ago.
We have built our lives around cars. Doesn't mean we can't change it. You sound like the same people who refuse to change their habits while the world crumbles around us.
Too hard not to use plastic for everything. Don't want to be inconvenienced by anything. Great.
I'm not selling you a car. Don't care about you. Selfish people don't think about anyone else.
I totally agree - kinda, the truth is there are various common use cases for cars. A cheap little run around that slow charges over night would be great for a lot of people but it wouldn't suit everyone, having a wide range of options is a great thing.
Charging at work via solar would be even better. If there was some way for businesses to be incentivised for it.
I'd be curious just how much energy you'd get from this. I couldn't imagine it would be very much. If the solar panels are on the roof and the roof is at least translucent then the efficiency would go way down. Not that i think an opaque roof would do a whole lot better though.
...why would the roof be translucent? I can't speak for anyone else, but exactly zero of the places I've worked have had naturally lit ceilings.
Because i didn't think about the work building having solar at the time... Lol
I don't think he means on the car roof but rather over the parking lot/work building
Oh, my. Lol. I really misunderstood
Why would you need that ? That makes no sense. Unless you drive 350km a day for work. If that's the case. Stop.
You aren't doing any favours for your job your health the planet.
Get a train or public transportation. Shouldn't be commuting hours to work. That's just nonsense
There are heaps of people who do just that without the privilege nor opportunity to stop or do otherwise
Do what ?
Drive long for work.
I own exactly one car. If it can't do everything I need a car to do, it isn't the right car for me. Me, like many others, don't buy a car for the 98% of drives, we buy it for the 2% of drives that need to happen.
Edit: Given there isn't a train that goes the 2% of places, should I buy one car for 98% of drives and a completely different car for 2% of drives? That hardly seems like a good solution.
I'm with you 100%. The people downvoting you must live in some idealized fantasy land where public transit is effective and rental cars are easily available and affordable.
Like you, I live in the real world, where public transit is a mess, the rental market is completely overwhelmed, and charging infrastructure is spotty at best. So I went with a plug-in hybrid vehicle when I needed something new after my 11 year old Lancer got rear ended and written off by the insurance company. Enough electric range for all of my daily driving, but also a gas tank for when I need to exercise that 2% of my driving routine and go farther afield.
It's been over 500km since I last filled the tank and so far it's still full.
Let me get this out of the way - this is my experience, other people may have very different needs and uses. I’m not saying my needs are your needs, or that your needs are invalid. I have a driveway and we were able to install a charger at our house. I don’t tow trailers full of lumber uphill all day. YMMV.
Getting an EV really opened my eyes to how many wrong assumptions I had about how much I drive and what the pain points would be. I worried a lot that range would be an issue - we got a Bolt, which has a nominal 259 mile range (on the low side these days), it’s fast charging isn’t super fast, and we live in New England, and park outside, so the battery was cold for the first several months we had the car, but we figured we’d adapt. As it turns out, so far there really haven’t been any pain points, and adaptation has been minimal.
In the winter on very cold days, when we’re running the heater, our realistic range is about 160 miles on a charge. But it turns out, I don’t drive anywhere near that far on a typical day. It’s more like 30-40 miles a day, sometimes a hundred, which is fine. The charger tops up the car in an hour or two, and could charge it all the way from empty overnight easily. Range is a funny thing - the thought of going to a gas station every 150 miles is offputting, but in reality, it’s the opposite - every morning I have maximum range, and NEVER have to go to the gas station, or a fast charger, which is a benefit I hadn’t considered. Now in the summer the range is substantially over 300 miles, and AC uses WAY less power than the heater, so it’s even less of an issue. In fact, I only charge the car to 80% every day to maximize battery life now because it’s fine (I do charge all the way prior to long trips).
It also turns out we take fewer long trips than I thought (4 in the 7 months we’ve had the car, 2 in the dead of winter). There was a train that went somewhere near one of the 4 locations, at exorbitant cost. The first, 2 weeks after we got the car, was a little stressful as I learned how to find and use fast chargers, but it really wasn’t a big deal. Especially when I figured out how to warm up the battery first, and not to bother filling up, just charging in the fast part of the curve, and parking at level 2 chargers when possible. On our overnight trips, to place with no level 2 chargers, even the super slow 110v charging was enough to keep us from having to worry about charge.
So the downsides turned out to not really matter (to me), and the plus sides (full range every morning, essentially silent, no smell, and by far the best performance of any car I’ve ever had) are pretty sweet.
That said, if I got second car, I’d consider a plugin hybrid - that does seem to take care of most of the 2% cases. The knock on them is that they have pretty low electric range (like 30 miles or so) but it turns out that would be fine the vast majority of the time. I’d just have to remember to get the engine to start once in a while.
I can't speak authoritatively about every PHEV, but the one I have at least takes care of that for you and will run the engine at least once every three months or so if your regular driving habits are such that you manage to stay all electric all the time.
That said, if your driving patterns are such that you can go 3+ months on the 40 mile EV range without ever dipping into the gas tank maybe you don't need a PHEV.
I'd guess it's probably because of the "Me, like many others, don’t buy a car for the 98% of drives, we buy it for the 2%" part which just makes no sense. Now, not being able to handle the 2% might justify the car not being the correct car for that person but realistically, people primarily buy a car for what they're going to use it for the majority of the time.
Presumably you would rent a special vehicle for the 2% of drives. Of course that's still inconvenient, and I don't know where the crossover for others is.
For an individual there are a lot of factors, and I don't know all of them because I have never owned an EV or even a Hybrid.
That said, if I could get rid of stopping at gas stations and oil changes, and have it cost less per mile, those are all plusses for me. But I still weigh it against the still much higher purchase price, and need for electrical work that would probably cost a lot, or 110v charging which would be slower than I'd like.
I also don't really want to have a "worse fit to me" next car just to get an EV. I think EVs keep getting closer, but I am still 50/50 if they'll be there when I'll need a new car in 5 years.
I hear ya. I'm leaning toward a plug-in hybrid for the car in a few years. Lets me get cheap fillups 98% of the time and still covers the 2%. The gas engine shouldn't need too much maintenance if it isn't getting used much. Though, I suppose in a few years when that time comes, I'll have to see if anything changed.
Same. I don't even want to think about the difficulties in transporting 5 mountain bikes without a car, and then hiring a car at the destination that also has a big enough bike rack.
Why not also move freight by train and use smaller delivery vehicles at the destination?
This , and I think the price will comedown a lot and soon, market pressure will see to that asap. We have yet to really see the economy of scale that is coming through and r&d for batteries is at a all time high. Plenty of promising developments in the very near future including the one cited in the op
Basically once price hits parity with nice it's over. Why would you upgrade to ice when they are getting blocked for resale after 2030 in several countries.
Running cost is cut in half. No oil changes less moving parts and so hopefully less maintenance costs.
I think honestly for most people. It's cost.
If you need a reliable running vehicle and it can get you from a to b. A little of people will look at lowest price.
Once you start earning more and need certain criteria you have to shop around a bit until you find that.
Once the market gets flooded with evs the price will start to get pushed down. Second hand market will be great but battery is going to be selling point.
Anecdotal I was just on a trading site looking at evs. Very few had range listed. Yet that is the most important part of an ev. I need to know range price and to some degree mileage. Batter check ups are going to be key. No point buying a dirt cheap car if battery replacement is 30k.
The issue with this mentality is that lots of people (or even most) can't charge at home or at work. If you have fast charging cars and enough stations then you don't need to address this issue and you now have a drop in fossil fuel replacement rather than something that needs lots of new local infrastructure.
Lots of people, yes but far from most. If you live in a house you can at the very least do level 1 charging which will meet you 30-50 miles of range per day.
Literally anybody who lives in an apartment block. Or anyone who's front door is too far to run a charging cable. Then charging at work is even fewer people. In my country most people can't park directly outside their house to begin with even if they own a house. This is very naïve.