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I wasn't able to listen to Elon's comments on this. Do we know if the actual wire gauge is reduced? It's entirely possible the thinner cable has the same conductive diameter and thus the same resistance. Water cooling could have simply reduced the amount of insulation required to keep the user from burning themselves on it.Thinner cable actually amounts to more resistive losses. Just because they're able to make the cable thinner through liquid cooling doesn't mean that it is more efficient. Personally, I prefer the existing cables. Less to go wrong, for sure. Liquid cooled cable is neat and all, but what happens when the pump in a pedestal fails? Someone kinks the cable while you're charging? Etc. Seems like a lot of complexity for little gain, right now anyway.
Cool though, if they can keep them as reliable as existing units.
I wasn't able to listen to Elon's comments on this. Do we know if the actual wire gauge is reduced? It's entirely possible the thinner cable has the same conductive diameter and thus the same resistance. Water cooling could have simply reduced the amount of insulation required to keep the user from burning themselves on it.
Other points all seem valid. I hope the pedestal can sense when coolant isn't flowing. I've seen some weird twists in Supercharger cables over the past few years.
The insulation isn't just for thermal purposes, it's for conductor separation to prevent arcing between high voltage conductors.
I don't know the exact gauge of the wiring used in the original pedestals, but I assure you based on the images of the Mountain View cables that they are not the same size.
I would assume they are using a non-electrically conductive liquid for cooling, which could potentially provide better protection than the rubber insulation. This could also be a mostly passive system with just thermal conductive heat transfer. Not necessarily a pump/flow based system. Just like a heat pipe based heatsink in a laptop. Someone needs to supercharge when it is hot and listen for a pump or fan in the pedestal.
The liquid wouldn't be in direct contact with the conductor's metal for sure.
I would be very impressed if this is a passive system, however I highly doubt it. We're talking about potentially dissipating hundreds of watts per foot of cable. This is an active system (pump, radiator, etc) with 99% certainty.
I have a water cooled PC that dissipates ~1kW. It takes about 3.2L/min of flow and a ~6x18" radiator with multiple fans to keep the water temperature < 40C.
Of course, I believe you are correct. Now you have me thinking about how much power dissipation there is in that roughly 6-8 feet long cable. Sounds like a quick and fun weekend project to design a liquid cooled supercharger cable, at least on paper.
Take a look at American wire gauge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Let's do a guesstimate. Make a wild guess that the copper in the new cables is #4 copper, which has a resistance of 0.2485 mOhm/ft. If the total length of the cable is 5 feet, so out and back is 10 ft, that is 2.485 mOhm total. Peak current is 330 Amps. Power is i^2*R or 330^2*0.002485 or 270 Watts total dissipation. Every wire gauge smaller is about 20% more power in the wires, so 300 Watts is in the ball park.
About 300 Watts lost out of 120 kW transferred is only 0.25% loss, not bad.
...to see if this could just be a liquid cooled heatsink attached to the wire in the pedestal. The copper wire itself could be conducting the heat back to the cooler heatsink.
The HPWC has #6 wire I believe, and folks are saying this is thinner.
As for peltier.... they're so inefficient they're effectively useless for power generation.
Not sure whether this has already been stated but wouldn't Tesla's main interest in these new cables be a lower copper cost and lower likelyhood of them getting stolen for the copper content?
Would be interesting to learn how much $$$-saving in copper the new cables give. Do these new cables run all the way to the charger or just to the pedestal?
Would be interesting to learn how much $$$-saving in copper the new cables give. Do these new cables run all the way to the charger or just to the pedestal?
Spot 3B is attractive because 3A is designated handicap use and the sign says to "use last"