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[wavelet]

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

IIUC, he's suggesting the Carbon has a 300V battery pack (when in charging mode), and 150V when running the bike.
300V of course should support CCS DC at 20kW on a 20kWh pack.

Note the Standard doesn't have CCS at all, so it obviously wouldn't charge at 15-20kW , just 3.3kW (AC) like their specs say.

A potential European version could do 6.6kW 2-phase charging on a Mennekes AC connection, or even 11kW AC on a 3-phase connection, like many European chargers support, which the Zero SR/F with Charge Tank is supposed to support.

That said, as above, I doubt they have differing voltages for differing versions of the same bike. Sounds much too complicated.

[Doug S]

I've been wondering for some time about the "200V limit" that exists for both non-spec CHAdeMO stations and all DC CCS stations (as I understand it, it's written into the CCS spec).

So let's say I connect my vehicle up to a CCS station, and it does the interface protocol thing with the charging station, at which point it claims to have a 250 VDC battery, with a current limit of, say, 125 amps. In reality, it's my 2014 Zero SR (which now has a 2016 14.4 battery in it), which is actually a 116 VDC peak battery, with a 1C current limit and a capacity of 125 Ah.

So the charging station starts ramping up the voltage, and current comes up as well, but it reaches 125 amps way, way before 250 VDC...let's say around 100 VDC. Is the charging station going to stop charging? I'd be surprised if it does. I'd imagine it's just going to assume the battery is very depleted, and allow my vehicle to manage the charge rate via the current limit. So it will continue charging, at 125 amps, and the battery voltage will rise slowly from 100 VDC, just as expected.

Then we get to 110 VDC, and the bike tells the charger that it can only tolerate, say, 25 amps now (or whatever the appropriate voltage and current levels are). Again, I doubt this would cause any sort of ill behavior. The charger would just do what we've told it to do, to charge to "250 VDC" but limit the current to a maximum of (now) 25 amps. Then, as the battery reaches its actual terminal voltage, the bike would tell the charger through the protocol to de-activate entirely, and we're fully charged.

Modern chargers usually act in "CC/CV" mode (Constant Current/Constant Voltage), with BMS supervision. In other words, they do bulk charge in constant current mode as the battery voltage rises, then top-off in constant voltage mode as the battery gets near full charge. We would just be allowing the charging station to think the battery pack is very discharged, and manage the process manually, using the current limit instead of the voltage.

Does anybody else think this would work, without giving the charging station heartburn? I really think it would work.

But no, I'm not going to risk my own bike trying it out.

[mistasam]

Regarding the Strike voltage, the switch was just an idea.  I have no idea if that's what they're doing.  They could be running the Carbon at 300V all the time (which might explain the higher power).  Maybe it's a different motor, too.  Maybe the battery is a different chemistry than the Standard, which could also explain the small weight difference.

The Standard can have CCS as an add-on, btw.

[MVetter]

The Standard can have CCS as an add-on, btw.

HOW

[mistasam]

They all come with the 3.3kW AC charger, but if you wanted to buy the Standard with CCS instead of just a J1772, you pay an extra $1500.  That's something they'd install from the factory before selling it.  Sorry, I meant "add-on" as something you'd buy in addition to the normal price of the bike.

[Bill822]

Not to be a downer, Sam, but it just doesn't add up. I've spent a career designing machines, even some with powerful lithium battery packs. I can't make what I've read coming out of Lightning add up. It's OK to hope. I don't want to see anyone in this industry fail. I just find Lightnings claims, combined with the lack of any kind of demonstration of a working model, to be a big red flag.