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[T.S. Zarathustra]

Coming to market is a new charging standard(s) named MCS. This is aimed at heavy-duty electric vehicles such as long-haul trucks, buses, and boats and should enable a 20–80% charge in approximately 20–30 minutes. Depending on exact configuration it can deliver up to 3.75 megawatts (MW) of power. Developed by the CharIN consortium, MCS utilizes specialized liquid-cooled connectors to handle currents up to 3,000 amps and voltages up to 1,250 volts.
In comparison our little bikes will be like flies on a wall. 

[Richard230]

I wonder what sort of local infrastructure those heavy-duty charging stations needs? Charging at 1,250 volts and 3K amps is nothing to sneeze at.  I would imagine that they would need some sort of on-site energy storage device, as well as access to high voltage lines needed to recharge the MCS. That likely represents a considerable investment.

[princec]

That is literally the power requirement of an entire small rural UK village. So stick a few of them in your depot and you need a literal brand new power station to power them all.

[Specter]

not at all, just turn off all your ac's heaters, dryers, and other non essential equipment every time a car charges and ya'll be fine.

still the cables to bring that power, very heavy, id not want to be the one hefting all those viking heads up and down all day

aaron

[Richard230]

Don't forget the new power generators needed to provide juice to the local AI complex. There is going to be fight over who gets those electrons. 

[Specter]

another problem is, the mindset, oh we'll just throw up another gas turbine generator, it'll take care of everything!!
first problem is getting the fuel to these things, many parts of the country they can't run their generators when they need them most because they cant get the fuel to them... its not available in high use times.

second problem is there is about a 2 to 3 year lead time to build these things.  so even when you finally do decide to build a .05 or something, get in line, long waiting list.

then there are the transformers, a good year to get one of them, and its getting worse every year.  then theres just the grid, its old and too small to handle this amount of power, you need to redo everything.

no easy solution, and the one that is there is going to cost trillions and take a decade or two.

aaron

[Curt]

In comparison our little bikes will be like flies on a wall. 

I look forward to charging my FXE in 6.9 seconds at 520C. It'll probably make a humming sound.

[Specter]

it might even make the hair stand up on your arms, right before the magic smoke comes rushing out to let you know that you just found the surprise unadvertised fireworks display in your bike !

still on the trucks trains etc that's the equivalent of 6 huge viking head connectors that weigh about 25 lbs each head, the cable is about 9 to 12lb per foot, well actually being high voltage probably more, and the insulation on kv class tends to be very stiff too, at least if you want any durability out of it.  plugging in and out, fun, and that's an entire new class of power handling once you get into that range.  any fuckup there is catastrophic, not just burnt batteries, but arc blast that'll blow arms and legs off.

probably plug it in, everyone runs and hides behind the concrete blast wall then pusht he button to roll in the hv switch.  they could probably power it with a 4160 feed but just the amps needed, thats still huge, much better feeding it with a 36.8 or if you got a few see if you can get a transmission drop and hit a 69k to feed it.

thats just not power you can just, throw another plug in, that needs to be planned and scheduled when putting that in, and depending on your local grid, a small municipality might even want that to be dispatched.

we have a steel mill out here, their main cooker pulls 50mw when they throw that switch on, now couple that with the stupid solar farm on a windy / cloudy day and that bitch is swinging 50 mw in a few seconds..yah the dispatchers gonna have a lot of fun heh

aaron

[Richard230]

it might even make the hair stand up on your arms, right before the magic smoke comes rushing out to let you know that you just found the surprise unadvertised fireworks display in your bike !

still on the trucks trains etc that's the equivalent of 6 huge viking head connectors that weigh about 25 lbs each head, the cable is about 9 to 12lb per foot, well actually being high voltage probably more, and the insulation on kv class tends to be very stiff too, at least if you want any durability out of it.  plugging in and out, fun, and that's an entire new class of power handling once you get into that range.  any fuckup there is catastrophic, not just burnt batteries, but arc blast that'll blow arms and legs off.

probably plug it in, everyone runs and hides behind the concrete blast wall then pusht he button to roll in the hv switch.  they could probably power it with a 4160 feed but just the amps needed, thats still huge, much better feeding it with a 36.8 or if you got a few see if you can get a transmission drop and hit a 69k to feed it.

thats just not power you can just, throw another plug in, that needs to be planned and scheduled when putting that in, and depending on your local grid, a small municipality might even want that to be dispatched.

we have a steel mill out here, their main cooker pulls 50mw when they throw that switch on, now couple that with the stupid solar farm on a windy / cloudy day and that bitch is swinging 50 mw in a few seconds..yah the dispatchers gonna have a lot of fun heh

aaron

Plugging in those charging cables sounds like a good job for non-union robots. 

[Stonewolf]

A lot of these kinds of installations will probably have storage systems on site so they can buffer by charging the storage at a lower rate. If there's a rush they might obviously run the storage down and have to throttle trucks stopping there but if well sized it should work ok.

[Specter]

that kind of storage is a few million dollars.
tesla has trailers basically  2 mw storage/ 1 mw output for 1.5 million each i think they are. hook to the grid and they are plug and play.
maybe have a row of them with a 50 acre solar farm behind them to charge when it's sunny, grid when it's not.  just charge 80 cents per kw/hr for the electricity, the truckers won't mind at all, they are already used to paying high fees and taxes for their diesel 

https://www.tesla.com/megapack

aaron

[DonTom]

There has been a MCS near here for many years.


See here on Plugshare.


It is at the Tesla Battery Factory on Electric Ave off of USA Parkway.


I have seen many Tesla Semis on USA Parkway--for years. I often ride in that area.


-Don-  Reno, NV

[Specter]

another way possibly is, each tesla supercharger now is good for what 250 amps or so.  just have a plug board with like 10 outlets on your truck so you have a manageable cable, but plug a dozen into the truck, each one you plug in gives you 250 amps of charge current.  those are simplistically easy to plug in and you could be hooked up in probably 5 minutes tops.  theyd probably have to beef the cable size up a bit but this would be doable.

aaron

[princec]

Yes, I did wonder why a multiple-connector solution isn't bandied about a bit more.
Relatedly I also wondered whether any bright spark (ahem) would champion the idea of daisy chaining motorcycles so we could fit 6 on a 100kW charger at a time. (Yes I am aware of the various issues that would need to be overcome).

Cas

[TheRan]

Using two stations is probably reasonable enough, but anything beyond that becomes a hassle. The cables are only going to be long enough to reach a vehicle parked at the station, not 5 parking spaces down, and if they extend the cables you then have a load of excess for those using the stations normally. You've also got a big mess of cables all trailing to one vehicle and even if the truck didn't take up all the spaces for all the stations you wouldn't really want other vehicles parking there anyway. You'd also have regular customers getting pissed when they turn up somewhere to find all ten spots taken up by one vehicle. It's also probably easier to insure one big station is functioning than 10 little ones, although one bonus would be that in the even of a failure or two you would still be able to charge at a reduced rate instead of just not at all.