Soon Electric Vehicles Could Charge Faster Than Your iPhone (yahoo.com) 321
The Washington Post shares a little-acknowledged downside to electric cars: recharging takes "upward of 15 to 30 minutes."
But scientists are already working on improvements: In a report released this week, government researchers said they have found a way to charge electric car batteries up to 90 percent in just 10 minutes. The method is likely five years away from making its way into the market, scientists said, but would mark a fundamental shift. "The goal is to get very, very close to [times] you would see at the gas pump," said Eric Dufek, a lead author of the study and scientist at the Idaho National Laboratory, a research center run by the Department of Energy....
At issue is the delicate balance of trying to charge an electric vehicle battery quicker, but not doing it so fast that a rapid charge does long-term damage to the battery or plays a role in causing them to explode. Charging electric batteries fast can cause damage, reducing the battery's life span and performance, scientists said. "You've had batteries when you first got it, they were great, but after a couple years or a few hundred charge cycles, they don't perform as well," said Eric D. Wachsman, director of the Maryland Energy Innovation Institute, an energy research organization at the University of Maryland. To try to solve this, Dufek and his team used machine learning to figure out how batteries age when charging fast. Their algorithm was trained to analyze 20,000 to 30,000 data points which indicated how well the battery was charging and whether it was aging or degrading....
Wachsman said the new research is helpful for the field. "Not too fast, not too slow," he said of Dufek's charging approach. "It's just right in that Goldilocks [zone]." But the bigger benefit, he said, would be if this method spurs car companies to make electric vehicles with smaller batteries, since they'd now have batteries that could be charged quicker and allow consumers to feel less worried about stopping periodically to get a quick recharge.
"Smaller batteries are cheaper cars," he said.
But scientists are already working on improvements: In a report released this week, government researchers said they have found a way to charge electric car batteries up to 90 percent in just 10 minutes. The method is likely five years away from making its way into the market, scientists said, but would mark a fundamental shift. "The goal is to get very, very close to [times] you would see at the gas pump," said Eric Dufek, a lead author of the study and scientist at the Idaho National Laboratory, a research center run by the Department of Energy....
At issue is the delicate balance of trying to charge an electric vehicle battery quicker, but not doing it so fast that a rapid charge does long-term damage to the battery or plays a role in causing them to explode. Charging electric batteries fast can cause damage, reducing the battery's life span and performance, scientists said. "You've had batteries when you first got it, they were great, but after a couple years or a few hundred charge cycles, they don't perform as well," said Eric D. Wachsman, director of the Maryland Energy Innovation Institute, an energy research organization at the University of Maryland. To try to solve this, Dufek and his team used machine learning to figure out how batteries age when charging fast. Their algorithm was trained to analyze 20,000 to 30,000 data points which indicated how well the battery was charging and whether it was aging or degrading....
Wachsman said the new research is helpful for the field. "Not too fast, not too slow," he said of Dufek's charging approach. "It's just right in that Goldilocks [zone]." But the bigger benefit, he said, would be if this method spurs car companies to make electric vehicles with smaller batteries, since they'd now have batteries that could be charged quicker and allow consumers to feel less worried about stopping periodically to get a quick recharge.
"Smaller batteries are cheaper cars," he said.
Not if the iphone use the same technology (Score:2)
And can be charged in less than a minute
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A few current phones do have very parallel batteries -- they advertise charging at up to 120 W. The problem is that it's hard to balance the charging and discharging across that many cells. There are small physical differences between the cells, and the environment of each cell is slightly different, so they don't all (dis-)charge at the same rate.
"soon" (Score:4, Insightful)
The method is likely five years away from making its way into the market
So going by the age old battery scientist adjustment factor of 10x the stated timeframe, it should be about 50 years until we see this in the market.
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>
The biggest thing that will ho
That's a lot of juice... (Score:4, Insightful)
Lets say we take a Tesla with a 100,000 watt-hour battery pack. Charging that up to 90% means stuffing 90,000 watts in five minutes. Normalizing that to watt-hours, we are talking tens of millions of watt-hours over a 24 hour usage time. Do we have the connectors and wiring for this? Maybe if we had room conducting superconductors and a liquid nitrogen based cooling system to handle all the heat coming from stuffing that many amps down a cable, even at relatively high voltages like 480 VDC.
No grid in the US can take that. Maybe in Europe where gigawatt power plants are commonplace, but it is next to impossible to get megawatt-tier stuff built, much less stuff built that can handle this amount of electricity, not to mention the wiring and infrastructure needed. If a grid in the US could take that much usage, there would be bitcoin mining data centers everywhere, just because BTC is a guarenteed win as one gets paid if they mine coins, or if they don't, like in Texas.
Sorry, but this stuff is nice fantasy, but reality does come knocking on the door. It would be nice to see PHEVs, but those are not "eco" enough for California, where their standards are just plain impossible to meet and are another tax on the poor. Most likely, CA's laws will just get struck down in a Federal court, especially if 45 becomes 47 (which is 100% guaranteed to happen if handcuffs are not clicked on wrists.)
How about a transition to PHEVs until we get stuff actually working? A serial hybrid has all the advantages of an EV but without the range anxiety.
Re:That's a lot of juice... (Score:4, Informative)
even at relatively high voltages like 480 VDC.
800V charging is going to be a standard soon. https://spectrum.ieee.org/ev-c... [ieee.org]
Re:That's a lot of juice... (Score:5, Informative)
If it's 5 minutes, you'll probably get no more than about 50% capacity factor at peak hours. So 540kW mean draw (if battery buffered for a steady draw). On what planet do you live where half-megawatt feeds are some sort of physical impossibility? The aluminum smelter half an hour from me has a 390 megawatt feed, and it doesn't require "room conducting superconductors and a liquid nitrogen based cooling system".
Are you talking about the cables? Yes, they're liquid cooled. No, there's no point going with liquid nitrogen or anything exotic, as it won't cool that much faster than water cooling. You're talking about just over 1MW peak. The MCS (Megawatt Charging System) standard for semi trucks handles 3 1/2 megawatts, and it Exists Today.
"No grid can handle" what? If all passenger cars went electric it'd only increase total electricity demand by ~15%. Add more for semi trucks and other vehicle types. And the overwhelming majority of that would be at night, when half the generation capacity sits idle because demand is so low.
Most places already - ALREADY - have the generation capacity for EVERYONE to go electric - let alone by say 2030, given that building most types of power plants only takes a few years (even nuclear can be built in a decade). The main thing that's lacking is local grid upgrades in various places. But local grids upgrades happen far faster than EV production can scale up.
Bitcoin miners go where the power is cheapest. There is not infinite demand for Bitcoin mining - they're fighting for a finite pool of newly minted coins, whose value depends on the current BTC-USD exchange rate (which is currently quite low).
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Wouldn't that be half a MW times a fuck ton of cars? I hope this post isn't indicative of your overall math skills :D.
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Lets say we take a Tesla with a 100,000 watt-hour battery pack. Charging that up to 90% means stuffing 90,000 watts in five minutes. Normalizing that to watt-hours, we are talking tens of millions of watt-hours over a 24 hour usage time. Do we have the connectors and wiring for this? Maybe if we had room conducting superconductors and a liquid nitrogen based cooling system to handle all the heat coming from stuffing that many amps down a cable, even at relatively high voltages like 480 VDC.
We do not have the wires and connectors for this. It is unlikely that we will due to things like the voltage that can be sustained in air before arcing occurs.
We had a Slashdot article not long ago of a professor from MIT trying to sell batteries for use at car charging stations to minimize the load on the electrical grid from dumping so much power into car batteries. If we are putting batteries at EV chargers to keep from overloading the local electrical supply then that is a sign of a large infrastructu
Re: That's a lot of juice... (Score:2)
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"We do not have the wires and connectors for this. It is unlikely that we will due to things like the voltage that can be sustained in air before arcing occurs."
That's why you don't just hot plug. Jesus, this is basic electrical operation. Even when I'm testing 1,000V LED arrays, it's always the same procedure to avoid free-air arcing - don't apply power until the contacts have actually been connected.
Re: That's a lot of juice... (Score:2)
"little acknowledged?" (Score:5, Insightful)
Not sure how they can call it that. Pretty much every EV-non-buyer cites that as one of the primary reasons for not buying one: they don't have a good way to charge it and don't want to wait 30 minutes at a charging station (assuming one is close enough to be reached).
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Yeah, if you don't have a spot to charge it at night, then EVs become quite inconvenient.
I suppose over time, even apartement complexes (complices?) would have charging stations in their parking lots.
I have a friend living in a condo downtown of the city I live in. And their HOA is currently talking about how many charging station they could support in the parking lots of the building and which residents want a charging station.
Are there many places in the US that does not have a charging station within a
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Re: "little acknowledged?" (Score:2)
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they don't have a good way to charge it and don't want to wait 30 minutes at a charging station (assuming one is close enough to be reached).
The "don't have a good way to charge it" is the real problem. The charging times are largely a matter of thinking of EVs as we do ICE vehicles and they just aren't the same.
First off, there's this weird view that you charge an EV like you do gas: that is, you drive it until it's almost empty, and then charge back to full. With an EV, you just constantly recharge it back to full as you can. (Or to 80% or whatever you need for your driving needs - the details aren't important.) There's no need to wait until t
Bad battery longevity advice (Score:2)
Straight from Tesla, they say the longest battery life comes from a charging pattern of drain down to 20% (they used to say 10% so it's not clear which is better) and then charge up to 90% (they used to say 80%).
Constantly recharging from above 20% will make your battery deteriorate faster.
I charge exactly as prescribed and my long term max battery loss is far below the average reported / expected numbers from the bulk of people who just do whatever.
It matters. It matters a lot if you're going to keep the
Re:"little acknowledged?" (Score:4, Interesting)
The charging times are largely a matter of thinking of EVs as we do ICE vehicles and they just aren't the same.
First off, there's this weird view that you charge an EV like you do gas: that is, you drive it until it's almost empty, and then charge back to full. With an EV, you just constantly recharge it back to full as you can.
No doubt. I plug my phone in every night even though I can get through two reasonable days on a charge. I wish I could explain this to all my family members.
Thing is, I like the ICE model. I fill up once a week or so, it takes less than ten minutes, and then I don't have to think about it. I personally would find it annoying to have to plug a car in when I get home and unplug it before I can leave. But honestly, it's not the end of the world and it's just not my preference.
Related to charging infrastructure, the real problem is people who don't park their cars in their garage and that's a lot of people. Those are the people who need a public charger and either we stand them up at work or at stores, or people need a fast facility to replace gas stations. And people using those stations will want to drive until they're close to empty and rapidly recharge to full.
Even charging stations at work aren't a panacea. At my company, for example, you pay by the hour you're using the space. That means I have to arrive, plug in, set a timer, then wander out to the garage and move my car an hour or two into the day. That's quite the inconvenience.
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Chargers are a lot more ubiquitous than you think. Lots of dealerships have them installed. https://www.plugshare.com/ [plugshare.com]
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Chargers are a lot more ubiquitous than you think. Lots of dealerships have them installed.
Good to know. That doesn't change a few facts. One, I don't drive by any dealerships on a regular basis. Two, I don't want to hang around there for 15-30 minutes.
But that wasn't my point. My point was this is a well know issue by anyone who's bought, not bought, or just talked about EVs any time in the last 15 years.
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Putting chargers where they're not convenient is not helpful. It's just stat padding. How many people want to go plug their cars in on a road of car dealerships and strip malls for several hours (chargers at dealers tend to be L2, not DCFC)? People either need L2 chargers within a couple minutes walk of their homes (if they don't have a driveway/garage) which they can consistently have access to (no waiting on another car to leave) and can leave overnight (no penalties for overtime) or need DCFC within h
Timed it (Score:3)
I've actually timed it: refilling my gas tank takes 3 minutes.
Until EVs can charge to full capacity in 3 minutes or less, they will remain an automotive niche segment. Far too many of us do not have 30 minutes to waste (or 60, 90, or longer if there's a line) on long trips.
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Battery Lengevity More Important to TCO (Score:3)
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Re: Battery Lengevity More Important to TCO (Score:2)
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The pipedream
What pipedream? Charging speeds have been dropping steadily for years and there's ongoing R&D looking into it. It's not a pipedream, it's very frigging close to a reality.
Okay ... (Score:2)
Soon Electric Vehicles Could Charge Faster Than Your iPhone
This either says something good about future electric vehicles or something bad about future iPhones ...
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HOW DARE YOU SAY SOMETHING BAD ABOUT MY IPHONE!
- Sent from my Apple brand iPhone (TM). Click here to purchase. This Ad was placed in all of my emails by Apple.
Smaller batteries? NO! (Score:2)
My ICE goes over 400 miles on a full tank (and it's not a tiny hyper efficient sub compact).
My model 3 is good for about 240 miles at most. It says 268 max and I don't want to push it too close to zero.
I'm already spending way more time charging for few miles in my Tesla. And the shorter range makes longer trips a bit dicey in my area while my ICE is absolutely guaranteed to make it all the way across the state and half way back on 1 tank.
These people think a smaller battery I can charge more often at cha
It won't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
The reality is modern BEVs can be charged plenty fast enough, there just needs to be more quality chargers in the key locations where the demand is. However chasing faster charging time is not where the real effort needs to go. It takes me 10 seconds to charge my BEV, 5 seconds to plug it in when I get home and 5 seconds to unplug the first time I go out the next day. Who cares when and for how long the car is charging as long as it done by the time I need it next.
Where the real effort is actually needed is increasing the supply of street side and shared car park level 2 charging at long term car parks used by people who can't park at home.
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For single car households, plugging in at night and unplugging in the morning solves many of the issues for typical daily driving. If you have multiple BEVs in the household, you might need one to charge quickly enough to swap the charger to the other car (depending on your main's capacity) without getting up at 2AM. It can become an issue. Add to that people with utility plans that give steep discounts for off peak charging and it complicates things further.
Outside typical daily use cases, those that ta
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It's also a trade-off. You might spend more time charging on a trip with a BEV, but you don't have to waste time at a gas station every week (or month).
It depends whether you take long trips more often, or head to the local gas station more often. If you head to the gas station more often, then a BEV saves time.
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On the other hand rural locations are usually easier to fit solar panels to. I had enough north facing roof space for 12kW of panels, so I have been charging my car for free at home ever since they were installed.
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"Where the real effort is actually needed is increasing the supply of street side and shared car park level 2 charging at long term car parks used by people who can't park at home."
Re: It won't matter (Score:2)
Where are all the 2 MW chargers? (Score:2)
Because that's what you'll need to charge an EV from empty in about the same time it takes to fill a gas tank
It's all coming together ... except... (Score:2)
... for charging outlets, at least here in the UK.
There's an estimated 40,000 - yet it is estimated that needs to reach over 2 million by the end of the decade.
Fine, that's achievable, but the impact that has on the energy grid will require the grid itself to increase capacity, while at the same time, reducing reliance on fossil fuels, otherwise the entire exercise is a waste of time.
Across Europe, we are witnessing what energy shortages are doing, as a result of demand, war and more than likely, extreme pr
Re: It's all coming together ... except... (Score:2)
Small step. Evolution rather than revolution (Score:2)
Will the new battery tech come first to phones or cars ?
I suppose there are more money in phones.
Now, new battery tech has been announced weekly/monthly for the last 5 years. Just give us money and we will go from lab to production in 1-2-5 years.
And be aware, standard cars like Kia EV6 already charges from 10-80% in 18 minutes, We are not talking even double charging speed here. Lots of people saw 50kWh charged in 15-16 minutes this summer. Tesla is slow charging and needs 50% longer.
All that said, I would
Doing away with my thin film solar panels now! (Score:2)
I still recall that the technology for thin film solar panels was 5 years away. 30 years later, I still can't buy them by the meter at my local hardware store fro a dollar.
"Little-acknowledged" - WTF? (Score:3)
little-acknowledged downside to electric cars: recharging takes "upward of 15 to 30 minutes."
The problem of charging time comes up in virtually every discussion around electric cars, whether it be among the science-and-tech crowd, policy makers, or Joe Schmoe and his friends trying to figure out if their lifestyles can accommodate "fill-ups" that may in some cases take an hour or more. Heck, it's even referred to in TFA:
For many Americans, electric vehicles are alluring up until the point they think about taking it on a long road trip.
"Little acknowledged"? I don't think so.
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Of course, I have a 300km range, and if I want to use all of that charge without driving in a circle, I need to cross national borders. It's kind a luxury position.
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No, what they're trying to say that it's seldom acknowledged that it's a problem by EV boosters — which is true but misleading, because it's not a real problem for most people.
COULD, yes. WILL, no (Score:2)
It's like saying that fiber-to-the-home gives you 10gbit internet.... yes, it could, if the upstream ISPs would support it. Likewise, you COULD charge your batteries at that speed if your local power grid didn't melt down if everyone does that.
Electric cars alread charge faster than iPhones (Score:2)
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Re:Until That Happens, Electrics Will Be Niche (Score:5, Interesting)
You might want to redo your math as we have cannonball rally times for a Tesla now.
In October 2021, the EV record was broken twice in the same rented 2021 Tesla Model S Long Range.[65] The first drive, from Los Angeles to New York City, by Ryan Levenson and Will Wood, lowered the EV record to 42:52.[66] The second drive occurred on October 22, 2021, leaving from the Red Ball Garage in Manhattan at 11:00am and arriving at the Portifino Inn in Redondo Beach, CA 42 hours, 17 minutes later. The second drive was piloted by a driver team of Ryan Levenson and Josh Allan. The only modification made to the stock Tesla was to replace the factory 21-inch wheels with the more efficient Tesla 19-inch wheels and to over-inflate the tire pressure to 47 psi (3.2 bar) for the second drive.[67]
Coast to coast in 42 hours!
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Re:Until That Happens, Electrics Will Be Niche (Score:5, Informative)
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Actually I don't know what I was reading before, the ICE record is 25 hours and 39 minutes.
Yes, but they broke the law...
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You couldn’t even read the whole fucking paragraph? Totally stock Tesla except they swapped smaller 19 inch Tesla wheels and over inflated. I’d say it’s a pretty significant milestone as it’s not much longer than the 1971 record.
Re: Until That Happens, Electrics Will Be Niche (Score:2)
Plus 51 years of superhighways built in the interim.
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Different wheels, wow! Plus they were obeying the speed limits.
I wonder what mods were done to the ICE car to achieve that record and how much jail time they would have received if they got caught?
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Lots of people wait two years before publicly releasing the gps and camera footage. There’s lots of local spotters and lookouts involved behind the scenes. On some stretches they’re doing 160!
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Actually the tires won't wear faster, as your contact patch will be smaller (thus, the efficiency gain of less friction). The tradeoff to over-inflation is a stiffer ride, and potentially less traction due to a decreased contact patch per tire.
And 5 PSI isn't going to cause a meaningful difference in tire blowouts unless you have the absolute cheapest piece of shit tire that you can find mounted.
So basically you're wrong about everything you said.
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Since I didn't read the article per Slashdot requirements, how much time did they spend sitting on their ass waiting for the charging. I don't see that in the snippet,
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Yuck!! Will be keeping my ICE until they get it down to comparable gas fill up times.
The rest of the electric car concept I like. Especially the silence. I hate noisy vehicles. It is my pet peeve. Living in the South has only exacerbated that.
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Net you're already ahead, except in Cali where you get more wait times for the charge stations that the gas pumps.
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There is neither "searching for" nor "reliability issues" with the Supercharger network, nor any "will they be busy" wondering, as this is all in your nav.
With other networks, reliability is mixed. Some are pretty good. Others, hit or miss. Kind of depends on how much the operators actually care.
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Yeah, I like loud cars but I don't mind quiet cars. But I really don't want the unpredictability of having to search for charging stations, and not knowing if they will be in service or busy when you get there.
Yeah, gas stations never get busy.
I also have a gas pump at home so I can full up when I get home from work instead of driving out of my way on the way home.
Re: Until That Happens, Electrics Will Be Niche (Score:3)
The logic as I understand it is that if you can charge your car in, say 30 min, then you can park at a rest stop, grab lunch, and be 80% there by the time lunch is over. Sounds pretty reasonable to me. Not sure what the problem with 80% is.
I think it's niche for other reasons, not least of which is that they're expensive. But I see more and more EVs out there, and I'm not sure how much longer they're niche anyway.
Re: Until That Happens, Electrics Will Be Niche (Score:5, Informative)
I think EVs have been cheaper than ICEs TCO for a while now and with gas getting more expensive the gap is widening.
During the lockdown I did a San Jose to Vegas to Zion to Page to Grand Canyon to Bryce to Vegas to San Jose roadtrip with the Model 3. Except for the Desert in Navajo nation never had to worry about finding charging stations. Only at St George on the Nevada-Arizona-Utah Border did I have to wait for a charging station.
The reason you see more and more EVs is that people who can do Math have figured out EVs are cheaper and convenient (No more wasting 30 minutes at Costco every week to fill up).
Re:Until That Happens, Electrics Will Be Niche (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not how it works. On the average drive you stop once every two hours or so - if your bladder, stomach and brain last that long - and charge from 10-30 minutes. Aka, a mix of quick bathroom / stretch breaks and meals. Your first drive of the day (and after any long stops) is - again, barring bladder / stomach / brain constraints, which are usually the actual limit - about 3 hours or so.**
Why on Earth would you insist on pushing yourself for four hours straight (which you shouldn't do regardless) so you can INCREASE the total amount of time you spend charging on your trip? It makes no sense.
(** - this assumes fast highway driving speeds. Here in Iceland we have a max speed of 90kph / 56mph, so it's much longer)
Re:Until That Happens, Electrics Will Be Niche (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to argue anything (really!), but I’d like to take a shot at providing some color on how Americans view driving very differently than you might.
Here in the US, we wouldn’t bat an eye if a coworker mentioned their plan to put 1000 miles on their car the next day, such as when driving to visit family for Christmas. It’s been awhile since I made a drive like that, but my family used to make huge drives across the American West when I was growing up, and I remember long stretches where we’d spend the vast majority of waking hours doing nothing other than driving from one national park to the next. We’d bring our own meals so we didn’t have to stop for them, we’d pee when we got gas, and we’d get our required summer reading knocked out for the Fall semester, as well as any other books we wanted to bring for fun. The southern half of the Atlantic seaboard is a day’s drive away from where I am now (Texas) if you’re willing to put in long hours and minimize your breaks, so while I’ll express the perfunctory “oof” when someone mentions they’re driving to Disney World tomorrow for their vacation, that sort of drive doesn’t surprise me in the least.
America is big, ya know? Texas alone is bigger than France, and if I recall correctly the distance from Seattle to Miami is roughly on par with London to Jerusalem, though I may be off on that and don’t care enough to fact check at the moment.
Mind you, I’m NOT saying these sorts of “marathon” drives are typical of everyday driving (they aren’t), nor am I saying that most drivers should make their purchasing decisions based on a semi-annual long-distance trip they might make (they shouldn’t), but so many of us here in the US have experienced or are reasonably aware of the tradition of marathon drives that it’s become an assumed requirement for any vehicle we consider. America is big and those marathon drives are part of the self-inflicted torture we engage in to deal with it, so how dare you force me into a healthier, less risky, more sustainable pattern of behavior instead of allowing me to endanger myself, my passengers, and others on the road so that I can arrive in one day instead of two...or so the sentiment seems to go. Which I get, but I think it’s short-sighted and ignorant of the benefits EVs otherwise bring in the other 99% of use cases.
For my part, I would gladly get an EV if I was in the market for a new vehicle. My daily commute is just a few miles (though isn’t safe enough for bikes to get the stamp of approval from my wife) and an EV’s range is sufficient for a round trip to any of the cities where we are most likely to make a day trip on the weekend. We do make an annual trek halfway across the country, but with a wife and two kids we need frequent breaks anyway, so all other things being equal the idea of an EV sounds great.
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America might be big, but humans are the same. You might not bat an eye about someone putting 1000 miles on their car in a day but you ought to. Humans simply don't have the brain capacity to do that safely. Concentrating reliably on driving for 14, 15 or more hours had not physiologically possible.
You can do very long trips in Europe if you want to. I did so when I was younger, probably hit the euro tunnel at 4 in the morning, and now regret it as a bloody stupid thing to do because I was driving like a fu
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"You might not bat an eye about someone putting 1000 miles on their car in a day but you ought to. Humans simply don't have the brain capacity to do that safely. Concentrating reliably on driving for 14, 15 or more hours had not physiologically possible."
Bullshit, I recently did a solid 17-hour straight drive from SoCal up to the Bay Area and back to deliver a dog to her new permanent home.
YOU might not have that brain capacity to do that safely. I certainly do.
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America might be big, but humans are the same. You might not bat an eye about someone putting 1000 miles on their car in a day but you ought to. Humans simply don't have the brain capacity to do that safely. Concentrating reliably on driving for 14, 15 or more hours had not physiologically possible.
And no one sane does that by themselves. My family also did 13-16hr trips to visit grandparents several times a year, but one person doesn't drive the whole time. When we were little, my parents would each be driving for 6-8hr each. Once my sister and I could drive, it was only 3-5hr each.
We generally just pulled over to switch drivers, and only stopped just long enough to use a bathroom and take a 10 min walk. Gas stations were maybe 5 min to fill and pee.
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Not to argue anything (really!), but I’d like to take a shot at providing some color on how Americans view driving very differently than you might.
I'll take a shot right back. Just because Americans are insanely dangerous drivers doesn't mean we need to appease their habits of attempting to set travel distance records. Now is a good time to remind people: GET SOME FUCKING REST. Your destination will still be there when you arrive an hour later. Or maybe just leave an hour earlier.
There's enough research to show that driving long distances without regular breaks makes you just as dangerous as someone who didn't sleep the night before, or who is drunk.
I
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Re:Until That Happens, Electrics Will Be Niche (Score:5, Interesting)
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That's not how it works. On the average drive you stop once every two hours or so - if your bladder, stomach and brain last that long - and charge from 10-30 minutes. Aka, a mix of quick bathroom / stretch breaks and meals. Your first drive of the day (and after any long stops) is - again, barring bladder / stomach / brain constraints, which are usually the actual limit - about 3 hours or so.**
You assume a single adult per car. Otherwise you only need a 30 seconds stop to change drivers and can easily go on like this for over 6 hours (i.e. until the tank is empty). Not so with an electric car.
That said I agree that if you're not pressed on time stopping for 15-20 minutes to recharge the car is not a big issue. Also if you have kids it's probably an imperative anyway. Also one very interesting project is the ep-Tender [eptender.com] which is a 30kWh range extender packaged as a trailer. Being a trailer this mak
Re:Until That Happens, Electrics Will Be Niche (Score:4, Funny)
> If you need to piss every 2 hours you should see a doctor. Ditto if you need to eat that often.
You sound dehydrated and hangry...
=Smidge=
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(full charge, not some 80% crap)
You don't charge the last 20% on a road trip because the last 20% takes about as long as the first 80%.
You don't charge to 100% ever, because that means that the car drives less efficiently, since it can't do regenerative breaking.
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Why couldn't it do regenerative breaking? Unless it's like the dead start of a trip downhill or something. But if it's a flat or even mostly flat road, presumably any breaking you do is going to regenerate less than the energy it took to get you moving to begin with.
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How much power the battery can absorb without risking damage to the chemistry is directly related to the state of charge. Regenerative braking power is reduced for exactly the same reason any other charging power is reduced when you get to 90%+ for most chemistries. Could be as low as 10-15kw if you're at 99% which, as far a braking power goes, is practically nothing. This leaves the friction brakes to pick up the slack.
That said, the overall effect usually isn't that big a deal and you likely won't notice
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A charge that will give you 4 hours of drive time typically takes less than 30 minutes in my 2 year old Model Y.
Of course there is a difference if you drive a staid 70MPH average instead of 90. (Both are so effortless in that car)
Yeah of course you can get an equivalent fossil-fuel fill-up in less than half the time (and 3X the cost). Who the hell cares?
In any case I don't see why we have to breathlessly wait for the next great battery development. Fine when it comes but we are doing pretty well r
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This is the biggest myth being propagated by people who don't have EV. I don't know how many that long trips you make, but I make about 2-3 trips and just rent a car. It costs less than $200 for a week. My last car rental put 1300 miles or about 15 cents/mile rental cost. Wear and tear on car is about 12 cents. So I spent about $40 over taking my own car. That is about 120/yr for 3 trips vs > $2000 saved in gas. It provided me peace of mind that if it breaks, I can get another car. Even if I take my own
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Why would I want to rent a crappy base model car rather than drive the more luxurious car I purchased? I buy cars with seats I find comfortable, options that make it more comfortable, a car with more sporty steering and acceleration. One where I have my stuff handy in places I expect it like sun glasses, phone charger, napkins, etc. I spend more on a car because I want a car I enjoy, not one I'll leave at home on longer trips.
On longer trips, I don't take long stops. I stop long enough to fill the gas t
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"Nobody" wants to but that's because "most" people are selfish assholes.
Take breaks and don't be a menace on the roads. If you want to unnecessarily endanger your life that's fine but don't endanger others without their consent, eh?
And I dispute your claim of nobody because I don't think most people are assholes.
This is not up for debate by the way. 80% of drivers think they are better than average, yet the statistics clearly show increased accident rates for long drives with no break. You do not have evide
Re: Until That Happens, Electrics Will Be Niche (Score:2)
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(full charge, not some 80% crap).
Ah, the "No True Scotsman" battery charge...
Re: Until That Happens, Electrics Will Be Niche (Score:3)
Re:Show me (Score:5, Informative)
And meanwhile batteries DO keep improving drastically, whether you notice it or not. So many you should drop the attitude?
That said said: I think this article overplays this one person's research. And also how much charge speeds matter. At home - in your everyday life - the charge time is "5 seconds", aka the time it takes you to plug in, because after that the next time you go to drive the car it's magically full. It only matters on trips, and on trips I find that 90% of the time, the car lasts longer than my bladder.
That said, people who don't own EVs are going to keep demanding faster charging for years to come, so the more research, the merrier. The main thing to overcome is ion diffusion rates. You can't charge a battery faster than ions can seep out of the cathode, and/or across the separator membrane, and/or through the anode's SEI, and/or through the anode. Try to do so and you'll just plate out lithium metal. So the design constraints are already well defined, at least from a max rate perspective. It's the reason why several years back Tesla started preheating its battery packs as you approach a charging station that's in your nav - ions diffuse faster through hot substances.
And yes, fast charging does reduce life relative to slow charging. But a typical person with a typical mix of fast and slow charging will get hundreds of thousands of kilometers of lifespan on their pack so it's not like it's the end of the world.
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AC batteries? How does that work?
Re:Show me (Score:5, Informative)
I laughed when I heard the term "AC batteries". My first thought was "Don't Feed The Troll".
But, now days, somebody is sure to use any outrageous name to catch people attention. Sure enough, there IS a group working on what they call an AC battery. Short version, they use an intermediary material to charge through the Anode on one half of the cycle and the Cathode on the other half. They claim it's more efficient and has some safety benefits. Not sure I accept all their claims, but the term AC Battery does actually refer to something. https://www.techbriefs.com/com... [techbriefs.com]
Re:Show me (Score:4)
I remind you that you need an account to post on Slashdot as AC these days. You can assume with almost complete certainty that when someone posts anything as AC they are a worthless troll who doesn't even want to be associated with their own words.
That's how AC batteries work.
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You missed the point. The comment is about the reporting, not about working improved batteries delivered.
I think you missed a point about reality.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, we get stories of theoretical battery breakthroughs. Sometimes the theoretical breakthroughs manage to become commercial improvements. The rest of us understand this why don't you
Re:Show me (Score:4, Interesting)
Get used to it. Add to that... Commercial fusion is only 20 years away. And self-driving cars are only 5 years away. And human level intelligence A.I. is only 10 years away. There are all sorts of promises that fail to materialize according to the schedules we demand. But it is inevitable that some discoveries and advancements occur and that the world moves forward a few millimeters at a time.
Just keep them plugged in! (Score:2)
The Evas can regenerate their wounds and body parts that have been damaged during the operations. Another ability is represented by the capacity to develop a protective shield known as an AT Field. Their movements are guaranteed by the power provided by an external cable called Umbilical Cable, which give them the electrical energy needed to operate their circuits.
With a long enough cable, you don't ever need to charge your EVs!