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[MVetter]

Hi guys,
I was at Mike Corbin's event this last weekend. On Thursday morning I showed up early to set up knowing there was going to be a Lightning booth around the corner from us. During setup a friendly Lightning employee came over and struck up a conversation.

I took this opportunity to ask him what the voltage range was on the Strikes. He said, and I'm paraphrasing, "Well it ranges from 150 to 300"

Me: "Variable voltage? Or do you mean the LS-218s run around 300?"
Him: "Yeah"
Me: "So you're saying the Strikes operate around 150 Volts?"
Him: "That's right"
Me: "Ok, so the minimum voltage required for most CCS* stations is 200V. How does that work if they're going to be compatible with CCS?"
Him: "You'd have to ask Richard."

I did not have the opportunity to ask Richard, so I don't have any further information. I will say that did have a gorgeous orange LS-218 and a light blue Strike on display all day Thursday.

*CCS is the standard for the level 3 DC Fast Charge systems

[SBK74]

The Lightning website communicates 380V for the LS-218. I would guess a manufacturer would keep voltages the same as much as possible for standardization purposes. What fascinates me more is the relatively small weight increase for additional kWh: 30 pounds curb weight for 10kWh more.

[ultrarnr]

I guess we will know for sure the first time a Strike owner tries to charge at a CCS charger with a low SOC!

[Haag13]

Sounds like the person you spoke to may have been in the marketing department rather than engineering, i.e., they have no idea about the technical specifications of the motorcycles. 

[MVetter]

CCS stations output a certain amount of Amps at the vehicle's voltage. Take a 100 Amp station. If a vehicle that operates around 300V uses that station they can pull 30kW (100A x 300V = 30,000W). If a vehicle that runs at 200V uses that station they can pull 20kW. If a vehicle that operates at 150V tries to use that station it will get 0kW.

[wavelet]

Sounds like the person you spoke to may have been in the marketing department rather than engineering, i.e., they have no idea about the technical specifications of the motorcycles.

Given the likely size of the company (tiny startup),  virtually every employee has to know this stuff -- they all have multiple  hats to fill, and there's no room for "pure marketing" people when you're selling sportbikes. It's all about the specs.
The charitable explanation would be that employees aren't authorized to talk about the bikes at all at this stage, as they haven't actually been launched yet, and have been instructed to refer everyone to Hatfield.

[wavelet]

CCS stations output a certain amount of Amps at the vehicle's voltage. Take a 100 Amp station. If a vehicle that operates around 300V uses that station they can pull 30kW (100A x 300V = 30,000W). If a vehicle that runs at 200V uses that station they can pull 20kW. If a vehicle that operates at 150V tries to use that station it will get 0kW.

You certainly know a lot more about this subject than I do, but FWIW,  the CharIn docs I've seen also say minimum voltage for DC charging is 200V, and once there's an appreciable number of DC chargers in the field (which is really already the case) it's going to be pretty much impossible to walk back that requirement.

[mistasam]

Just confirmed:

Strike Standard is 150V
Strike Carbon is 300V

So the Standard is capable of charging at 15-20kW, and the Carbon can do 30-40kW 

I'm assuming that means the Carbon battery is 2 Standard packs run in series for range, and parallel for charging.  That part isn't confirmed yet, and probably won't be, but makes the most sense.

[MVetter]

How would a 150V battery be capable of charging at 15-20kW on a minimum 200V station, Sam?

[mistasam]

How would a 150V battery be capable of charging at 15-20kW on a minimum 200V station, Sam?

It wouldn't even work there, but the new stations being installed go down to 50V (at least I've heard that's the new standard).  That's how it is in Europe and NZ.  A station here is 125A, so that's a maximum of 18kW.  Not bad for a 10kWh pack!

[ultrarnr]

I know CHAdeMO can go down to 50 volts but have never heard of CCS going below 200 volts. Zero had problems with some of the CHAdeMO systems going down that low which is one of the reasons they abandoned CHAdeMO charging.

[MVetter]

Are you saying they're planning on building bikes with the hope that compatible stations will come out?

edit- and more food for thought regarding cell structure. I have been informed recently that H-D's proposed LiveWire, for example, has a 60Ah battery pack and uses CCS. I was also able to math it out that the bike operates in the low 200s for Voltage. All this and the bike only charges at 1C. The stations are clearly capable of putting out more than this, but we don't know anything about what the potential batteries are capable of accepting. There are still so many unknowns right now. This absolutely applies to any information regarding the Strike as well.

[mistasam]

True that.  We'll have to wait for the first owners to go out and do some charging tests.  And range tests.  And acceleration tests.  WHY AM I NOT IN CALIFORNIA?? ;__;

[wavelet]

Just confirmed:

Strike Standard is 150V
Strike Carbon is 300V

So the Standard is capable of charging at 15-20kW, and the Carbon can do 30-40kW 

I'm assuming that means the Carbon battery is 2 Standard packs run in series for range, and parallel for charging.  That part isn't confirmed yet, and probably won't be, but makes the most sense.

It still doesn't make sense to me.


So what does the Mid-Range model have?
And you're positing that the two packs in the Carbon change configuration dynamically every time you start/stop charging? That would seem to require another set of contactors between the two packs. Also, how does the BMS handle balancing? Does it occasionally reconfigure the packs to test/fix balancing?
This all sounds non-standard, expensive, complicated and an additional failure point.

[mistasam]

That's a good question about the mid-level.  I'm just guessing here, since that info hasn't been released yet.  It's all possible, though.  Switching between series and parallel doesn't sound difficult.  We'll just have to wait and see.  If there are any people on here who've ordered a Carbon and are getting it soon, they'll have to do the real-world tests for us.