More power needed for future EV's?

Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV Forum

Help Support Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Pancake

Active member
Joined
Nov 5, 2015
Messages
36
Hi all,

I wondered what your opinion is about the future of electric cars? For me that's relevant, in particular because I have the option to install a complete electric heavy "infrastructure" (as if it's a house) in my garage right now (which means fiscal benefits if I do it now), or not (or later). This is where I park the car.

In my opinion, investing in a personal infrastructure (just) for charging, is well worth the money. Why? Because right now we charge our plugin cars with about 10 KWH, in a timespan of about 4 hours. Tesla's already "store" more energy in about the same time. I think, but please give your opinion about that, that in about 5 years time, the new generation electric cars will be able to drive at least 500+ miles, and charge within an hour. That means that a normal 16 amp charge will not be enough.

IF electric driving is the future (and in my opninion it is starting to look more and more like it, looking at breakthroughs regarding batteries, which however are not (yet!) implemented), any investment in an infrastructure that allows someone to charge fast ("ship" a lot of current / heavy powerflow) is worth it.

Do you share this opinion? Or will petrol just be replaced by hydrogen?
 
As long as your garage power installation has spare capacity, ie a spare way in the consumer unit, for any future needs then that is as far as I would go. As to power rating...who knows!

To me overnight charging taking up to say 8-10 hours is no problem so a lower capacity would suffice.

We thought long and hard about a dedicated higher output charge point but in the end realised that for our present usage a standard UK external power socket would do until any future car upgrade.
 
Pancake said:
Hi all,

I wondered what your opinion is about the future of electric cars? For me that's relevant, in particular because I have the option to install a complete electric heavy "infrastructure" (as if it's a house) in my garage right now (which means fiscal benefits if I do it now), or not (or later). This is where I park the car.

In my opinion, investing in a personal infrastructure (just) for charging, is well worth the money. Why? Because right now we charge our plugin cars with about 10 KWH, in a timespan of about 4 hours. Tesla's already "store" more energy in about the same time. I think, but please give your opinion about that, that in about 5 years time, the new generation electric cars will be able to drive at least 500+ miles, and charge within an hour. That means that a normal 16 amp charge will not be enough.

IF electric driving is the future (and in my opninion it is starting to look more and more like it, looking at breakthroughs regarding batteries, which however are not (yet!) implemented), any investment in an infrastructure that allows someone to charge fast ("ship" a lot of current / heavy powerflow) is worth it.

CHAdeMo at the current specification has the capability of delivering 62.5kw. However, you're unlikely to get that kind of power even with Three Phase, let alone any residential single phase.

The limitation is not the battery. In theory, any model Tesla could soak up the 62.5kw and more and not damage the battery, let alone the 12kw those chargers typically give. The issue is that residential power infrastructure just wasn't designed to handle that much. In many places, when everyone turns on their air conditioner, you get brown outs and black outs - imagine what happens if everyone turned on a 12kw charger.

If you can get three phase, fantastic. Go for it. Future cars will be hungrier for power than we can give it. Though realistically, how many kilometers will you be driving a day, that you need ultra rapid charging? Just because the battery can do 500+ miles, does that mean most days you will be driving most of those miles? Or just topping up the 50km that you did going to work and back that day? The car's battery will thank you for more frequent, smaller top ups at the lower rate of charge anyway.
 
CHADeMo chargers are also extremely expensive - as in many thousands of pounds - not something that many people would fund for their homes.
 
Reaching chademo power levels will be hard, but right now I'm opting for 3x35 AMPS, which is 105 amps in total. At a (future) voltage level of 240v, this gives 25.2 KW. If every KWH provides 2,5 miles of range, it provides about 62,5 miles per hour which is sufficient.

Charging during the night (8 hours) provides 500 miles of range...
 
Pancake said:
Reaching chademo power levels will be hard, but right now I'm opting for 3x35 AMPS, which is 105 amps in total. At a (future) voltage level of 240v, this gives 25.2 KW. If every KWH provides 2,5 miles of range, it provides about 62,5 miles per hour which is sufficient.

Charging during the night (8 hours) provides 500 miles of range...

Where are you Pancake? Not the UK I suggest as most UK domestic power supplies wouldn't cope with over 100A plus normal domestic load. The local distribution system most definitely would not cope with more than a few in each locality and would require re-engineering of the distribution system!
 
I'm not sure what breakthrough in battery technology you've heard of, Pancake, but Lithium-Hydride is close the limits of what is achievable with electrochemical batteries. Battery performance in the key area of power density has been creeping up at a few percent a year for the last decade and I'm not aware of anything that's about to change that picture.

For a car to achieve 500+ mile range would require something like 200 kWhr and a battery weighing over a ton (and needing 4 hours to charge using CHAdeMO). So my money is on PHEVs being the way forward, since a lot of vehicles do most of their mileage on relatively short journeys.

If you're looking for a real game changer in the next 10 years, I'd say driverless cars - but I'm not sure how easy Google, Tesla etc will find the transition from the wide open spaces of California to British roads. :D
 
ChrisMiller said:
I'm not sure what breakthrough in battery technology you've heard of, Pancake, but Lithium-Hydride is close the limits of what is achievable with electrochemical batteries. Battery performance in the key area of power density has been creeping up at a few percent a year for the last decade and I'm not aware of anything that's about to change that picture.

For a car to achieve 500+ mile range would require something like 200 kWhr and a battery weighing over a ton (and needing 4 hours to charge using CHAdeMO). So my money is on PHEVs being the way forward, since a lot of vehicles do most of their mileage on relatively short journeys.

If you're looking for a real game changer in the next 10 years, I'd say driverless cars - but I'm not sure how easy Google, Tesla etc will find the transition from the wide open spaces of California to British roads. :D

I'm in the Netherlands and anyone can ask for 3 x 35 amps. And with regard to the batteries: the internet is full of breakthroughs about to happen (this also reagrds the weight of batteries). Every self-respecting car brand wants to be the first to show the range of their electric vehicles is bigger than 500 miles... Let's see... I give it 5 years...
 
jaapv said:
Actually max domestic supply is 3x50 Amps in the Netherlands.

:( Max in Sydney is 63A Single Phase, or 32A Three Phase. "Subject to local network". That means even if you were willing to pay for 63A running to your house, if they believe you would cause brown outs, they'd deny you.
 
You'll find many interesting theories on the Internet, Pancake. Some of them may even be true. I prefer to believe in the known laws of physics and chemistry.
 
jaapv said:
Actually max domestic supply is 3x50 Amps in the Netherlands.

True... but those prices... It also requires much more expensive installations... For me, that is a bridge too far.
 
Weird.

When I installed the solar system here, the local power distributor "upgraded" my home power connection from a two phase (yes I understand how weird that was) to a single phase 100amp connection.

Perhaps you can get a better power connection by installing solar? :)

:)

Andy

PS. The second phase was for a separate power meter connected to an electric water heater. That water heater was the first thing I replaced when I bought the house.
 
Back
Top