LeftieBiker wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2019 1:54 pm
Even 20 minutes is 10x longer than filling a gas tank,
Maybe if the gas tank is only low by two gallons. It really takes about 4X as long, but why use actual data when hyperbole is such fun?
It's not hyperbole. Retail gas pumps are limited by regulation to a max. flow rate of 10 gpm. If the filters are dirty maybe you only get 5 gpm. At 25 mpg, which is what the new car fleet has been averaging +-1 mpg for the past several years, that's 125-250 miles of range per minute. A 53 mpg Hwy Prius can add up to 530 miles/min, and unlike batteries, the rate is constant unless you top off.
Which is why I cited 1200kW as the charge rate needed to get us into the same ballpark as an ICE - that's 20 kWh or 60 to 80 miles/min, so 5 minutes would give you 300 (@ 3 m/kWh) to 400 (@ 4/kWh) miles of range, assuming no charge taper. It still falls a bit short of liquid or gaseous fuel replenishment rates, but for most people it's probably good enough on trips, as they're maybe spending a few minutes using the can/cleaning the windows/buying something to eat or drink.
That's what will be needed to make sense of putting QCs at gas stations with limited parking and where high throughput is required, but a 20 minute charge that could replenish the same 300-400 mile (real world) range would mean that putting them at fast food places would make sense. That's 300kW, and we're getting close to that initial rate now but nowhere near that as an average rate, and we still don't have the necessary real-world range.