ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Richard230 on September 09, 2012, 03:25:25 AM
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According to an article in the business section of my newspaper today, written by Ken Belson of the New York Times, titled "No one's ready to take charge", charging system manufacturers seem to be going their own way when it comes to public charging infrastructure. Apparently, some EV and on-road charging system manufacturers are using different fast-charge systems that are not compatible with each other, as the connectors and software are different, leading to a potential Betamax/VHS- type war. The article says that many of the existing charging stations installed by municipal governments use CHAdeMo technology, are already used in some 1,500 fast chargers globally. This system works with Mitsubishi and Nissan vehicles. However, German car makers, such as VW and Mercedes are proposing a fast charger that uses a two-prong connector that will work both on AC and DC circuits. Then the Chinese are going their own way in their country, with another system and Tesla has developed its own charging system that it says can provide enough juice to charge up their cars within 30 minutes to provide 150 to 160 additional miles.
Meanwhile, "all eyes are on an otherwise obscure technical committee of the International Electrotechnical Commission. The committee is reviewing the standards and in the coming months is expected to approve one or more of the fast charger standards".
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Competition is healthy and sparks new innovation. The CD rom stayed with 1984 technology until recently, even though technology kept improving, innovators were stuck to be backwards compatable with the old standard.
I think until a standard is developed that could allow hundreds of thousands of watts or more I think there will be changes over and over every year or so. Ultimately as battery C rates get better and capacities increase, the need to eventually deliver maybe upwards of 1000 volts (250 cells in series, allowing smaller awg wires as long as cell level balancing (over charge/discharge protection gets integrated into the cells themselves)) at 1000 amps is not out of the question soon, that would be 1000 kw or 1Mw charging which I don't think any standard thus far could adapt to. Voltages on packs will increase from here on, at least that's what I'm feeling.