First DC Station capable of charging at a rate of up to 350 kW, operational by 6/17?

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Somehow, I cannot imagine that a 350kw charger will be in our lives for a VERY long time. Isn't this pie-in-the-sky fantasy?

Darn, we are still at 6.6kw charging... How could anyone even imagine that we will be able to charge our Leafs in 2 minutes in the near future????.....

Yeah and I want a Jet Pack to go to work..
 
As a charger, why not. We have more transportation devices than only cars. How about charging city bus while driver is
having a workday break for one hour. Or a ferry with 300-500kWh battery pack.
Engineers ask different questions - how to charge battery much faster (110kWh battery at 330kW speed for example).
 
powersurge said:
Somehow, I cannot imagine that a 350kw charger will be in our lives for a VERY long time. Isn't this pie-in-the-sky fantasy?

Darn, we are still at 6.6kw charging... How could anyone even imagine that we will be able to charge our Leafs in 2 minutes in the near future????.....

Yeah and I want a Jet Pack to go to work..
Click to expand...
Tesla charges at 110kW now. Porsche will be charging at 300 next year.
 
powersurge said:
Somehow, I cannot imagine that a 350kw charger will be in our lives for a VERY long time. Isn't this pie-in-the-sky fantasy?

Darn, we are still at 6.6kw charging...
Click to expand...
Those are two different issues -- the DCFC rate, and the internal charger's rate (from AC). The DCFC rate is more like, what, up to 50 kW?
 
Chargepoint goes a step further, via IEVS:
ChargePoint Express Plus Debuts: Offers Industry High 400 kW DC Fast Charging
Click to expand...
http://insideevs.com/chargepoint-express-plus-debuts-offers-industry-high-400-kw-dc-fast-charging/

  • Platform adds hundreds of miles of range in under 15 minutes, charging today’s and tomorrow’s electric vehicles (EVs) at their peak rates.

    Offers the highest charging capacity in the industry, delivering up to 400 kW per port.

    The modular, highly scalable platform is designed to meet the charging requirements of current and next-generation electric cars, buses and trucks.

    Proprietary liquid cooling technology supports the thinnest, most flexible high-capacity charging cables on the market and creates a superior charging experience for drivers
Click to expand...
As noted in the article, availability of these chargers will eliminate the chicken and the egg problem. There's a spec sheet: http://insideevs.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/ChargePoint-Express-Plus-specs.jpg
 
400A per plug maximum current. Only a notch more than Tesla's SuperChargers today.
Raising voltage and telling that "our ultra station is the best" is lame.
It's something like adding more megapixels to phone cameras - they still do bad job in low light.
 
arnis said:
Today I did a 10min DC charge with healthy 24kWh Leaf battery at exactly 1.4C - constantly - 32kW speed.
I got a result: 97% efficiency. This was in the low SOC part. And only 1/4 of all capacity was charged.
Unfortunatly I can not be sure that number on DC station and LeafSpy are very accurate.

For now (without additional information) I suppose 3% inefficiency is possible at "not that fast rate" and "low SOC".
I suppose Tesla has no worse than 95% efficiency at 120kW rate.
Therefore appr. max 120x0,05=6kW of heat generation in the pack.
This looks plausible. At the same time big question mark - why Tesla can not handle keeping the pack at constant temperature
at very warm weather scenario.
Click to expand...

If you're able to vary the charge rate for your Leaf, it would be interesting to plot the thermal time constants
(TTC) for the Leaf battery as a function of charge rate. These data should result in a family of TTC curves,
i.e. with the Y axis being battery temp, the X axis being time & each line being a different charge rate.

Also of interest would be TTC for a step function of temp, i.e. the Leaf moved from a cold setting - a garage
(60 F) to an ambient of 100 F degrees. This would be an indication of how well the Leaf's battery is heat-sunk
to the chassis for heat dissipation or accumulation.
 
This week I realized that there is no constant for battery temperature cooldown.

And this came from next observations:
during above freezing ambient weather it is very hard to get more than 10C above
ambient for average battery temperature with only 3.3kW charge rate (no L3 charging).
On the other hand it is very hard to not get more than 10C above ambient if it is
very cold outside. This week we had -20C (aka -4F) and battery was +2C (above freezing)
after only one longer trip. It doesn't cool down as fast as in mild weather.
I though about that for half an hour and came to conclusion than humidity
plays a big role on cooling. And now it makes a lot of sense why battery pack hardly
cools below -5C even after cold soaking for 10-15 hours at -15C -20C.

As a sauna lover I know that it is not the temperature people feel, it is the humidity (aka ability
to get/lose energy). Same works with enclosed battery pack. If we submerge battery into
water it will have much better heat transfer. Air pouch in the pack would then be the limiting factor.

I can easily sit in 120C (250F) environment for 10 minutes if humidity is low.
Adding half a liter of water (½ gallon) into small room at that temperature will instantly burn my ears :D
I can not withstand two minutes in 60C (140F) if Rh is above 100% (misting vapor).

Therefore there is no constant for L3 charging. Heat generation can be calculated using efficiency figure.
That efficiency also changes but most likely very little (25kW rate vs 50kW rate).
 
arnis said:
This week I realized that there is no constant for battery temperature cooldown.

And this came from next observations:
during above freezing ambient weather it is very hard to get more than 10C above
ambient for average battery temperature with only 3.3kW charge rate (no L3 charging).
On the other hand it is very hard to not get more than 10C above ambient if it is
very cold outside. This week we had -20C (aka -4F) and battery was +2C (above freezing)
after only one longer trip. It doesn't cool down as fast as in mild weather.
I though about that for half an hour and came to conclusion than humidity
plays a big role on cooling. And now it makes a lot of sense why battery pack hardly
cools below -5C even after cold soaking for 10-15 hours at -15C -20C.

As a sauna lover I know that it is not the temperature people feel, it is the humidity (aka ability
to get/lose energy). Same works with enclosed battery pack. If we submerge battery into
water it will have much better heat transfer. Air pouch in the pack would then be the limiting factor.

I can easily sit in 120C (250F) environment for 10 minutes if humidity is low.
Adding half a liter of water (½ gallon) into small room at that temperature will instantly burn my ears :D
I can not withstand two minutes in 60C (140F) if Rh is above 100% (misting vapor).

Therefore there is no constant for L3 charging. Heat generation can be calculated using efficiency figure.
That efficiency also changes but most likely very little (25kW rate vs 50kW rate).
Click to expand...

So you're stating that a battery charge rate (amps) has no effect on the battery's temperature change, i.e. a .1C versus
a 1C rate results in the same temperature change over the same time, right?
 
sendler2112 said:
powersurge said:
Somehow, I cannot imagine that a 350kw charger will be in our lives for a VERY long time. Isn't this pie-in-the-sky fantasy?

Darn, we are still at 6.6kw charging... How could anyone even imagine that we will be able to charge our Leafs in 2 minutes in the near future????.....

Yeah and I want a Jet Pack to go to work..
Click to expand...
Tesla charges at 110kW now. Porsche will be charging at 300 next year.
Click to expand...

Just to be clear, Porsche has never said their vehicle will except 350 kW of power. They may have said it will be able to use a charging station that is capable of 350 kW, but then so is a Nissan LEAF or a Mitsubishi iMiev.

I’m going to be saying this a lot in the coming years, the placarded maximum charge rate of the station has very little to do with how fast it will charge your car.

A Tesla charge station can DC output 365a * 400v = 147kW, yet no Tesla car can charge over 120kW. Those same cars absolutley can charge at either 365a, or 400v, just not at both the same time.

The same is true of a Chevy Bolt EV, Nissan LEAF, BMW i3, or eGolf, or any number of other vehicles restricted to 125a. Virtually all public DC charge stations are physically capable of 500v, but no car Is.

So, while the charger is technically capable of 125a at 500v = 62.5 kW, all those cars listed above charge below 50 kW. Why? Because none of the cars are capable of more than 400v. In addition, none of them are capable of handling the rated 125 amps at their max battery voltage. Again, no car is charging at 125a * 400v = 50kW (well, there is one… the Tesla Roadster with a 416v battery).

It’s quite probable that should the CCS group ever publicly release their data, we will find that the maximum amperage is 400 and the maximum voltage will be 850 to 900:
 
TonyWilliams said:
<snip>
It’s quite probable that should the CCS group ever publicly release their data, we will find that the maximum amperage is 400 and the maximum voltage will be 850 to 900:
Click to expand...
Per the Chargepoint spec sheet (back one page), the max. for their new unit is 400A @ 200 - 1,000V. If a Mission E has an 800V battery, it will have max. charge rate of 320kW. It would take a further boost in pack voltage by some manufacturer to get the full 400kW. Chargepoint is future-proofing to some extent by allowing a max. voltage of 1,000, even though no car known to be in development at this time can use that.
 
lorenfb said:
So you're stating that a battery charge rate (amps) has no effect on the battery's temperature change, i.e. a .1C versus
a 1C rate results in the same temperature change over the same time, right?
Click to expand...

What I said that there is no constant due to air humidity factor that is almost never mentioned.
Charging battery at .1C to full and 1C to full will have slightly different efficiency. Slightly different heat output if we sum the whole charge cycle.
Due to tenfold time difference peaking temperature will be different and efficiency difference will not be even noticed.
 
GRA said:
TonyWilliams said:
<snip>
It’s quite probable that should the CCS group ever publicly release their data, we will find that the maximum amperage is 400 and the maximum voltage will be 850 to 900:
Click to expand...
Per the Chargepoint spec sheet (back one page), the max. for their new unit is 400A @ 200 - 1,000V. If a Mission E has an 800V battery, it will have max. charge rate of 320kW. It would take a further boost in pack voltage by some manufacturer to get the full 400kW. Chargepoint is future-proofing to some extent by allowing a max. voltage of 1,000, even though no car known to be in development at this time can use that.
Click to expand...

I think you are confusing the charger performance specs with the protocol specs. Yes, the ChargePoint charger has limits of 400a and 200-1000v. They are mistakenly calling that "400kW", even though no car would ever charge at that speed.

Currently, the CHAdeMO spec maximum is 350a / 50-1000v.

CCS has not publicly released their specification, but it's becoming more clear that is is likely also 350a, but also a duty cycle limited 400a. A company called Phoenix Contact has produced a liquid cooled pin set in the plug to handle the limited 400a.

As far as the maximum voltage for CCS, we just don't know... 850, 900, 1000??? We don't know. The minimum voltage is probably 200 or 250.
 
A couple of predictions:

1) BEV battery voltage will move rather quickly from the current range near 400V to 800V or above. Why? Because higher voltage is simply better than higher current for power electronics (and for batteries). At 800V, the power switches will move from Si IGBTs to SiC MOSFETs. This will improve efficiencies of both the chargers and the drive electronics.
2) Charging at-or-near 350A will take quite a bit of time to become commonplace. There will be problems with overheating and fires early on. Simply put, it is a challenge to make the resistance low enough in connectors and crimps in consumer products at such high current levels. It also takes a lot of copper.
 
I don't think that packs above 1000V are reasonable for road transportation.
800V, yep. Possible. Still I think that 400V will be preferred for low range EV-s.

250kW-350kW charging (whatever voltage) will most likely not happen in few years on cars.
Heat extraction from pack not doable AFAIK.
 
RegGuheert said:
A couple of predictions:

1) BEV battery voltage will move rather quickly from the current range near 400V to 800V or above. Why? Because higher voltage is simply better than higher current for power electronics (and for batteries). At 800V, the power switches will move from Si IGBTs to SiC MOSFETs. This will improve efficiencies of both the chargers and the drive electronics.
Click to expand...
Availability of affordable large value capacitors over 600v is what has dictated the 400v standard we have now. Even to a progressive company that stakes it's claim to fame on high charge rates like Tesla.
 
sendler2112 said:
Availability of affordable large value capacitors over 600v is what has dictated the 400v standard we have now. Even to a progresive company that stakes it's claim to fame on high charge rates like Tesla.
Click to expand...
Interesting. Thanks!

Is this issue mainly for the charger? The drive inverter is 3-phase, which greatly reduces the need for capacitance. I'm familiar with quite a few designs up to about 10 kW, but perhaps at 10X to 30X the power it's a much bigger issue.

The charger is single phase (at least in this country), so much more capacitance is needed. Doesn't everyone use electrolytics for the charger today, even at 400V?
 
I'm seeing plenty of high voltage FETs now so I am assuming the voltage rating of the caps are the hang up to increasing the pack voltage although I haven't looked at a schematic of the charger or motor controller to see how much capacitance is really needed. Large format electolytic caps above 650v are still quite rare.
 

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