EV Fast-Charging Standards In Flux 122
savuporo writes "With the first battery electric vehicles becoming available on markets worldwide, there is an increased push to establish standards for fast-charging plugs. Unfortunately, the story is far from simple. The US hopes to establish its own DC fast-charging standard by 2012, and Europe cannot come to an agreement about their version. Meanwhile, the CHAdeMO fast-charge standard developed and widely deployed in Japan, used on both the Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi MiEV, is gaining momentum with deployments underway both in the US and Europe. CHAdeMO is limited to a 62kW charge rate, able to charge smaller battery packs to 80% SoC in 15-30 minutes."
Multiple standards can coexist (Score:4, Interesting)
There's no reason why an EV refueling station can't support multiple charge standards (as long as there are only a handful versus dozens).
One of the biggest expenses in setting up a charging station is in getting the high-power high-voltage power feed from the power company. Supporting a different connector or voltage adds a relatively small incremental cost to the charging station.
After all, gas stations already support diesel and 3 grades of gasoline (ok, technically it's just 2 grades and they blend them at the pump).
Switch Batteries? (Score:2, Interesting)
Obviously a fast switch of batteries is a better idea. I don't want to wait 15 minutes or even 5 to recharge. Then they can have fast chargers dedicated and efficient to re supply the batteries. I know batteries are expensive so the biggest obstacle is just figuring out a credit/ID system so that people can be trusted to trade $1000 batteries quickly.
International standardization trivial (Score:5, Interesting)
Honestly, all that matters is that each region has a uniform standard, and is large enough that economies of scale will kick in.
You're unlikely to take your car to Japan with you, and what's more, since we're only really talking about SIGNALING, it's only going to take a few dollars worth of electronics to do the conversion. Sure, a $20 adapter so you can use your electric razor on another continent is inconvenient, but a $20 adapter so you can use you CAR? No problem.
Now, if the EU can't agree on a standard, that would be a problem. Wander across the border from Germany to France and you can't charge your car... Oops. And the added expense for charging stations to maintain two or more sets of chargers for different countries' vehicles wouldn't be cheap or easy to maintain.
Come to think of it... Are electric cars and hybrids coming with normal electrical outlets installed? 120/240V ? They really should. Could eliminate the "car adapter" market over-night, make traveling much easier and add a tremendous amount of utility to an electric vehicle... Even if utility power goes out, EVERYONE with an electric car could have a substantial backup. I can imagine lightning fast tire changes if you can power your impact tools on the road... But I digress.
As they say, as goes Estonia, so goes Lichtenstein! Clearly Japan is on course to dominate the world...
Re:Switch Batteries? (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh no, these aren't 1000$ batteries we're talking about. A thousand-dollar battery is what you put on an electric bicycle.
A 16kWh pack (like the Nissan LEAF and Mitsubishi i-Miev use) is about 10 000$. A full charge is good for around 100 miles of autonomy.
A long-range battery pack would be many tens of thousands of dollars...