Electrify America Is Shutting Down All Its 150-350kW Chargers Due To Potential Cable Defects (cnet.com) 130
Electrify America, a Volkswagen subsidiary created as part of the German automaker's $2 billion settlements with California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its use of emission test cheating devices in its diesel vehicles, is shutting down all of its high-powered 150- and 350-kilowatt electric chargers due to a potential manufacturing defect with the liquid-cool charging cables. CNET reports: The cables in question come from a supplier called Huber+Suhner. Electrify America's release didn't specify what the defect might be or whether any injuries or damage had occurred. "The safety of our customers is our highest priority," said Giovanni Palazzo, president and CEO of Electrify America. "Out of an abundance of caution, Electrify America is shutting down all of our stations that use the Huber+Suhner high-powered cables until we can confirm that they can be operated safely. We are confident that Huber+Suhner will investigate and resolve this issue as quickly as possible." Thankfully, 50-kilowatt CCS chargers, Level 2 chargers, and CHAdeMO units will still be running.
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Level 2 means AC.
Re:level 2? (Score:5, Informative)
As defined by EV charging standard SAE J1772:
Level 1: 120VAC (nominal) up to ~2KW
Level 2: 208-240VAC (nominal) up to ~20KW
After that you have "quick chargers" which there is multiple standards for, and all bets are off. They usually involve putting power directly into the battery, bypassing the vehicle's on-board charging hardware.
=Smidge=
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Level 1: 120VAC (nominal) up to ~2KW
So if I happen to live in a country without any 120 volt grid at all, all chargers are at least Level 2 by default?
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> So if I happen to live in a country without any 120 volt grid at all, all chargers are at least Level 2 by default?
According to the SAE standards, yes. Actual wattage may vary depending on the circuit ampacity available though.
=Smidge=
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Meanwhile, in other Tesla Killer news... (Score:3, Informative)
The new Audi E-Tron just opened for configurations [www.audi.de], so now we can see its final stats.
Starting price: 80,9k EUR
0-100kph (0-62 mph): 6,6s
Top speed: 200kph (124 mph)
WLTP combined range**: 381km (236 miles)
** WLTP gives more optimistic figures than the EPA. For example, the Model 3 LR AWD is rated for 560km (345mi) WLTP, but only 310mi EPA. Jaguar I-Pace is 467km (290mi) WLTP, but only 234mi EPA.
E-Tron (a 5-seater) also apparently comes with some truly record-smashing energy consumption figures, even worse than the I-Pace: around 250Wh/km and around 400Wh/mi WLTP combined (worse as EPA combined). Double the energy consumption of a Model 3. The latter of which charges at ~117kW on existing Superchargers, faster when V3 comes out. E-Tron would need to be able to charge at ~240kW to beat it in charge times (actual peak rate: 155kW). By far, most of the actual chargers the E-Tron can charge at are only "50kW" nominal, less in practice. Oh, and then there's this news about Electrify America shutting down its (small numbers of) >50kW chargers
What a joke. Can we get a real "Tesla Killer" on the market, please?
Re: Meanwhile, in other Tesla Killer news... (Score:5, Informative)
E-Tron is a 5-seater with an interior space is only slightly more than Model 3 (the driver's seat and dash are further back from the front end than in the Model 3, eating up its extra ~30cm length, and part (though only part) of its extra height is a mix of ground clearance and pack thickness; width is basically the same). It does get a larger boot however due to its reduced rear taper (though smaller than the Model S's - 605 vs. 894L; Model 3's is 424L). Overall space is far smaller than a Model X. Yet its energy consumption is way higher than even Model X, which is not only much larger, but also uses an inefficient induction motor (unlike the Model 3). It's just a crazy level of consumption for a 5-seat vehicle. Nothing short of an electric F350 should use that much power on WLTP.
Remember that when someone uses the term "CUV" (or more misleadingly, "SUV", although that's outright wrong), that's a statement of form factor, not size. Even the Kona has been being referred to as a "SUV", and that thing is quite small.
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But really what blew me away was how poor they spec'ed it. Almost suspiciously so, like they were trying to avoid undercutting their ICE sales. 80,9k EUR (starting price!) for a vehicle that does 0-100kph in 6,6s and has a top speed of 200kph / 124mph? Really? Power is the easy thing to add more of in an electric vehicle. It's mind-boggling to me that they spec'ed it so low.
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1) No, it's not [tesla.com]. And it doesn't bundle basic tech features into a separate options package.
2) This is after Tesla eliminated the much (nearly $20k) cheaper 75D, leaving only the high margin 100D and the very high margin P100D (the difference in cell costs between a 75D and a $100D is only ~$5k or so).
3) E-Tron isn't even close to the size of Model X. The rear-seats-down internal space is literally 50% larger in the X than the E-Tron. E-T
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Tesla's competing offering, the Model X, is almost 50% more expensive.
How is that possible? Is the $73k starting price for Model X "almost 50%" higher than the cited 81k Euro ($92k) starting price for the Audi E-Tron? How does that compute?
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It's an Audi. It's a luxury barge with pretend sport features.
Get a Niro or Kona. One third the price, longer range, high spec. Only problem is the Kia/Hyundai badge, which is only really of much concern to people who buy Audi rep-mobiles.
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Not exactly. An SUV is by most definitions built on a truck chassis.
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Its all in the frame
...of mind?
Re: Meanwhile, in other Tesla Killer news... (Score:4, Interesting)
Not exactly. An SUV is by most definitions built on a truck chassis.
Nope. The first unibody SUV was the 1983 Jeep Cherokee, few would even attempt to argue that it's not a SUV.
What a SUV is not is based on a car. If it's unibody, it's got to be a unique one, or at least so changed from the original that it's unrecognizable. Of course, VW blurs that line, too.
CUVs are clearly car-based SUVs, but there's no firm definition for what an SUV is. It's really just marketing.
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If it's unibody, it's got to be a unique one, or at least so changed from the original that it's unrecognizable. Of course, VW blurs that line, too.
When you make a strong statement, and then equivocate, it just means you're wrong. And you knew it.
If they blur the line, and it is actually just marketing, that also means there isn't a clear line, and it doesn't "got to" this, or "got to" that.
Once upon a time, an SUV was the class of vehicle typified by the Chevy Suburban. An even heavier vehicle built on top of a truck frame. These days, few of those types sell, and most things called an SUV would have just been 4WD cars back then. The difference betwee
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"These days, few of those types sell, and most things called an SUV would have just been 4WD cars back then. "
Maybe. It's hard to say when the closest thing we had on the market was the AMC eagle, the first CUV-by-another-name which was indeed referred to as a car. Subarus were all that car-like, except the brat (which was clearly car-based.)
But the whole point of my comment was that the lines are blurry, and that frame vs. unibody has nothing to do with anything.
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Subaru is the perfect example; the Forester was a car, now the same old Forester that wasn't an SUV when it was made, is an SUV.
The Legacy isn't an SUV, and the only difference is 2" of height and the wheel wells.
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Also, if you think the interior space of a Model 3 is similar to a Toyota Celica, you've clearly never been inside a Model 3. Interior space is more than a 3-series, even though the external dimensions are similar. They did a really impressive job on maximizing internal volume.
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I doubt many people will be cross-shopping a premium-brand SUV with a cheaply built saloon that isn't actually on sale in Europe yet. Additionally, the e-tron is ready for high-current chargers that will soon be everywhere, while Tesla has not yet announced what the maximum charging power will be for the Model 3. Chances are it won't be more than the 120kW offered by Tesla's own chargers.
Re:Meanwhile, in other Tesla Killer news... (Score:4, Informative)
1. Your "cheaply built saloon" has the highest resale value retention of any car in the US in the US [twitter.com], from a company with the highest owner satisfaction [businessinsider.com]. But don't let facts interfere with a good attack line.
2. Model 3 is on sale in Europe [tesla.com]. First customer cars arrive in Europe on a week from now [vesselfinder.com].
1. There are two primary factors that determine how long you're waiting at charging stations on a road trip: A) the charging power, and B) your vehicle's consumption. As described above, E-Tron is such a guzzler that even if it can charge on 175kW stations it still would only charge at 3/5ths the number of miles/kilometers per minute. Of course, most CCS stations are far from 175kW.
2. "Soon be everywhere" is a funny statement. You know that Ionity network that's supposed to be making them in Europe? You may be surprised to know that the vast majority of what they're actually building is only CCS v1 (capped out at 200A, not 500A as in CCS v2). It's not even clear that they support 800-1000V yet either, rather than just 400-500V. The "350kW" moniker is designed to be a "later upgrade"; they're 350kW "design intent".
3. Even if this weren't the case, they're years behind the Supercharger network.
They've pointed out that all of their current production can take powers well faster than current superchargers can deliver, which is ~117kW. The onboard computer, when put into factory mode, shows a current limit of 525A, which would be ~180kW, give or take.
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3) Not over here they aren't. Problem is that they tend to focus on urban charging stations, which sort of makes sense because there are tons of Model S taxicabs here. In the Netherlands, FastNed have way more chargers, and many of them are on the highway. I
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Wait times in the US for Model 3s haven't been long since the end of 1H 2018.
And "high demand" is exactly the point in a conversation where a person is trying to talk down a vehicle.
There's nearly 4k Supercharger stalls in Europe. Point
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Apparently the vast majority of all EV buyers in the US are "fanboys". What a weird cult! Hey, is it still a cult if the majority believe in it, or does it then get reclassed as a religion? ;)
Seriously? I literally point you to a ship full of Model 3s, and you say "I'll believe it when I see it"? Want more? Here [vesselfinder.com] you go [vesselfinder.com]. They fill up a ship a week at
Re:Meanwhile, in other Tesla Killer news... (Score:4, Interesting)
On the short range end, I really wonder how well the Tesla 3 will sell. It might still be too expensive compared to what the competition is offering.
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"I would have thought that an "X killer" would need to be better than X (perhaps quite substantially), not just comparable, for all values of X"
Then you'd be utterly wrong, i.e. videotape format wars.
For something to be an X killer, it needs to be perceived as better than X. Key words: "perceived" and the definition for "better".
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Then you'd be utterly wrong, i.e. videotape format wars.
Weren't those won by available content? That's definitely one measure of "better" for a media format.
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When I was a kid the stores had both. My family started with beta.
In the end when people stopped buying beta and switched to vhs it was because of available content; but that was after the wars had been fought and won.
The vhs machines proved to be a lot more popular. Once they had significantly won the sales battle, the war was over. But the rental stores still carried copies of most movies in both formats for a few years.
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"Weren't those won by available content? That's definitely one measure of "better" for a media format."
It certainly is but, then, that was *my* point, not yours. Remember, you said: "I would have thought that an "X killer" would need to be better than X (perhaps quite substantially), not just comparable, for *ALL VALUES OF X*." (emphasis mine).
See? VHS was never better than Beta or 2000 for all values of video media -in fact, it was common knowledge that both Beta and 2000 were technically superior to VHS.
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"E-Tron"? Is that for real?
In French, "etron" is a turd.
https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=fr&tl=en&text=%C3%A9tron
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Re: Meanwhile, in other Tesla Killer news... (Score:2)
The French manufacture the Citroen, which is a fail in pretty much any language familiar with lemons.
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You are actually more annoying than the Russian trolls.
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AUDI's etron is a piece of shit: https://www.google.fr/search?h... [google.fr]
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Actually, this problem just got worse [fastned.nl]. The problem appears to be worldwide; it's hitting Europe too.
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TFA said that the nature of the defect has not been disclosed by Huber+Suhner. So, no way of knowing if it met the spec.
It might have failed a version of the "Idiot drives off with the nozzle still in the car while yapping on the cell phone" test.
Not really (Score:2)
The announcement makes it clear that it is a suspected problem with the product itself, regardless of its application. The press release [amazonaws.com] from Electrify America says: “At the recommendation of its supplier, HUBER+SUHNER, (...), Electrify America is shutting down .... The recommendation was issued to all of HUBER+SUHNERS’ customers using the technology worldwide.”
Charging stations don't seem to be very viable. (Score:3)
Every mile of a gas car comes from the gas station. 90% of the electric miles come from an outlet in the garage from overnight charging. So these charging stations will dispense typically ten times fewer miles compared to day. Electric miles are four times cheaper than gas miles. So the revenue of these charging stations will be 1/40 th of present day gas station revenue.
Now there are 120,000 gas stations with total revenues of 450 billion dollars. If all of us start driving BEV, these charging stations will pull in collectively 11.5 billion dollars. At less than 0.1% marketshare, the total revenue of these chargers is around 11 million a year. The equipment needed is very expensive, Bolt charges at 50 kW, Teslas at 128 kW and Porches/VW are talking about 350 kW (800V systems). The transformers needed, and the heavy draw power equipment etc are expensive compared to simple pumps and underground tanks. The revenue just not justify the capital needed.
Independent charging stations, like gas stations, are not economically viable, it looks like. Utilities might build them at a loss, so that they can sell more electricity in garages and overnight charging. Car makers might build these networks at a loss. Governments might build it with subsidy to fight climate change. Companies might be forced to build these as a punishment for other wrong doing, (VW is building these stations under a consent decree for the dieselgate scandal). If BEV market share reaches some threshold street part
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But you are right: the economics don't work. You are at the mercy of Tesla, and they will hike the rates as they need more quarterly revenue.
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Re:Charging stations don't seem to be very viable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Charging parked BEVs would be a good application for solar in appropriate climates. Use solar panels as a roof over those large office parking lots where the cars sit all day, and you could do a substantial amount of charging. At the same time, shaded parking is highly valued in such climates, and generally only available to neurosurgeons. Every week in here we get another article telling us how solar is too cheap to meter, so how hard can this be?
So far, I have seen one example of this idea in use, at one of the large Krogers in Phoenix.
Re:Charging stations don't seem to be very viable. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Tesla tried battery swap, but found that most people would prefer to just Supercharge.
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Tesla tried battery swap, but found that most people would prefer to just Supercharge.
There's still no evidence that any customer car batteries were ever swapped. The battery was installed partly with adhesives in shipped vehicles so it would have been extremely nontrivial to do a swap. There is exactly as much evidence that they simply connected the battery to an external coolant source or chiller so that they could charge faster during their "swaps" that took half as long as a supercharge. That is to say, there is no evidence either way, since there's no video of the process ever actually
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This is the most insane conspiracy theory I have ever heard. I personally used the battery swap at Harris Ranch at eight different times; drove in with a range remaining between 1 and 10 miles, went to the bathroom, and came back to a car with a range of 260 miles remaining. Charging to full takes over an hour, and it was done in less than 5 minutes. There's no way it could be chilled to make it that fast.
Why it failed, though, is that it was:
1) expensive ($40 for a swap)
2) inconvenient for the customer (yo
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At least with the network I saw used in China, there was no scheduling, a swap was 150 RMB (about half the cost of a tank of gas for the equivalent car), and they had plenty of batteries charged and in-stock. And there is NO NEED to scale your battery pack if you can hot-swap it. Make a standard sized pack, designed to fit on all cars, and call it done. And a 150 mile range is actually fine if you can charge up in a few minutes; during a drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco or Las Vegas, I'd much rath
Except for the video of it actually happening: (Score:2)
Let me guess, fake news?
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I tried to play your video and YouTube sent me to "Ludicrous Tesla takes down multiple Hellcat Challengers Drag Racing!" Which doesn't really speak to your claim. Just tell me whether that was a customer car and save me the trouble.
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Who said anything about an hour or two? Typical Supercharge times are more like 20-30 minutes. And the reason people prefer it is because it's cheaper. Battery swap stations will always require more infrastructure, so the cost per KWh will be higher. Battery swap also only works well if everyone has a standard swappable battery, and cars simply don't all come in the same size.
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And you just pointed out one of the problems. A 60 KWh pack is just a touch too small for me. I'm glad that I have the option of packs in the 70-100 KWh range. Standardizing on a pack now will just hold back the technology.
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I call BS. Why would people WANT to stop for an hour or two, when they could swap out their battery in 2-3 minutes?
Tesla Superchargers take roughly as long as people need for a meal. And Tesla cars can go hours on a freeway. So a long road trip looks like: drive for hours, stop at a Supercharger, get a meal while the car charges, continue the trip.
It's not as convenient as gasoline or diesel, because with those fuels you can go from empty to full in 5 minutes or less, and you get longer ranges as well, so
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Well, this ignores urban chargers for people who can't charge at home. (Those can work on a subscription basis, and should have sufficient demand to keep prices down.)
As to the viability of high-speed chargers along highways for travel, we're not looking at 0.1% market share, we're investing for the future with a much higher market share. I don't know the numbers, but once installed, a charging station requires very little maintenance, and the operating cost is just the electricity. So the break-even pri
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Many gas stations don’t make money selling gas. Gas is sold as a loss leader at many stores.
With sub $2 gas, a 33MPG vehicle only uss $6,000 in gas in 100,000 miles. There are plenty of gasoline cars availabe for under $20K new.
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Absolutely. You can't run a charging station like a gas station.
It has to be like a truck stop, with a restaurant and stuff.
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You are looking at it wrong.
Independent charging stations ala gas stations are not the way forward.
Around here, offices and shopping areas (grocery stores, malls, etc) are putting in charging stations in their parking lots as a perk to draw customers in. Public parking garages have charging stations -again to draw in business.
Small businesses are partnering with companies providing charging infrastructure as well. My business has a small parking lot with 10 spaces. One of the charging companies is paying
Wait..What? (Score:2)
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Using the electricity to heat whatever liquid they are using isn't terribly efficient.
Using electricity to heat is 100% efficient. Heat transfer from the cable to the water jacket is a different question, but still incredibly efficient. I'm not sure you actually understand what it is that is being done here.
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Using the electricity to heat whatever liquid they are using isn't terribly efficient.
Using electricity to heat is 100% efficient. Heat transfer from the cable to the water jacket is a different question, but still incredibly efficient. I'm not sure you actually understand what it is that is being done here.
Reminds me of the Ham Radio operator who was bragging to me about how efficient his antenna was, because he put toroids on it and they got hot. This means energy wasted heating up toroids that would otherwise be readiated from the antenna. In his case, his setup had feedline radiation that he was choking off. But it was still energy spent heating those chokes.
Now in the case of these chargers, you would also want energy going into the batteries. So unless heating is an integral part of the process, any en
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Now in the case of these chargers, you would also want energy going into the batteries.
Oooooh you're talking about wanting to not make heat and instead put more energy into the cables. Man are you good at this. First you suggest that the simple solution is to do the one thing they couldn't do (bigger cables), then you go and harp on about some completely insignificant inefficiency in a 350kW charging system like it's some kind of problem.
A liquid cooling system would be indicated if you were using cables too small for the purpose.
Nope, A liquid cooling system would indicate that the cables designed for the purpose needed cooling given other engineering restrictions.
Some further research shows https://insideevs.com/vw-elect [insideevs.com]... [insideevs.com] Yup, those cables are way too small to be passing 350 KW through them.
That isn't research
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This. If the cable is getting hot, the conductor isn't big enough for the current its carrying.
This is a dumb comment. Every cable heats up regardless of size if the current is non zero. Whether that temperature rise is too small to measure or not is irrelevant. Cables can happily run hot enough to be glowing red and still happily pass current, the question is if that cable is safe to handle.
Liquid cooling is just a way of increasing the current carrying capacity which is limited by the temperature rating of the non conductor components in a cable, specifically the insulation.
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This. If the cable is getting hot, the conductor isn't big enough for the current its carrying.
This is a dumb comment.
Oh, AC. I love it when people call me out when they are 100 percent wrong.
Every cable heats up regardless of size if the current is non zero.
The issue is how much amperage you are trying to run through what sixe cable. The thinner the cable, the higher the resistance. The larger the current and the higher the resistance, the more heat will be generated .
There is a reason why we don't use 20 gauge wire in our car's starting circuit. Run a hundred amps through 5 feet of that and you have a fireworks show.
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Oh, AC. I love it when people call me out when they are 100 percent wrong.
Hmm. Claiming I'm wrong while not even realising who you're talking to, you're not off to a good start.
There is a reason why we don't use 20 gauge wire in our car's starting circuit. Run a hundred amps through 5 feet of that and you have a fireworks show.
Indeed. Now if you cool that cable to -150C it will work just fine. Unfortunately for your straw-man argument we're not using 20gauge wire here, and it's not practical or cost effective to liquid cool cables in the car which is why they take a simpler engineering solution to this problem: A bigger cable, something which is not practical for 350kW chargers.
Oh lordy - this excess heat - Where is it coming from? The cable. Where is it going? Into the cooling medium. Where do we want it to go? Into the battery.
Yes, Yes, WTF No! Don't be silly. Making a conducto
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Oh, AC. I love it when people call me out when they are 100 percent wrong.
Hmm. Claiming I'm wrong while not even realising who you're talking to, you're not off to a good start.
The evidence in this issue shows that you are wrong, so your internet muscles and AC CV don't mean much. If the cables are liquid cooled it is because they need to be, and if the cooling system fails, the inevitable happens. Liquid cooling doesn't change the resistance of the wire, it simply allows the heat generated to be removed.
Your argumentum ad verecundiamis is cute though. I appeal to Ohm's law
Perhaps you can set up an experiment to prove me wrong. You'll also be proving the people that took th
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uhm, so what state of matter is more efficient than liquid cooling? Would you say, screw it.. let the cable become hot and therefore much less efficient?
Oh geesh. Come on you guys, this is supporse to be a tech site. All metal conductors have some ohmic resistance. This resistance goes up or down based on the thickness of the metal. Too thin a conductor, and you start generating undesireable heat as the resistance does it's job and dissipates some of the powerFor maximum efficiency, you want as little resistance as possible.
Therefore, you want a bigger diameter cable, or a different way to attach if you insist on running 350 kW though the charging circui
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Therefore, you want a bigger diameter cable
You're a genius. I'm not sure how the army of engineers working on bigger chargers managed to get so far without your help.
And I certainly wouldn't design a charger like that.
Clearly you wouldn't design any charger. I mean if you did you'd probably have read up about it and would know that the limiting factor for >150kW chargers as they stood was cable size and voltage rating for continuous flexible connect / disconnect systems.
But hey I can't help it you're so smart. You should go call up Porsche as soon as possible and tell them that after a year of en
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Therefore, you want a bigger diameter cable
You're a genius. I'm not sure how the army of engineers working on bigger chargers managed to get so far without your help.
As likely as not, the diameter and ease of use of the cable was dictated by marketing concerns. The engineers had a cable size they had to use.
And I certainly wouldn't design a charger like that.
Clearly you wouldn't design any charger. I mean if you did you'd probably have read up about it and would know that the limiting factor for >150kW chargers as they stood was cable size and voltage rating for continuous flexible connect / disconnect systems.
Design of charging circuits is pretty simple. These folks just ran themselves up against Ohm's law. Using a fluid cooled system to draw off excess heat generated by the use of too small of cables that are exhibiting resistance heating isn't surprising. The biggest problem is if the cooling system fails. And if the resulting sparks and fire occur at a mixed fuel loca
One more time: it wasn't a "device" (Score:2)
Idiots keep calling a few lines of code a "device."
This is what happens when you let law makers redefine English terms.
Will never work in France (Score:1)