Supercharger V3 Power - 1000kW?

[pilotSteve]

Your Bob example is meaningful, but actually he arrives 8 minutes late rather than 10 minutes (or worse).

In your Alice example, she'd have shorter journey time by stopping less often.

.... so what about Carol and Ted?

 

[arg]

.... so what about Carol and Ted?

They were last seen in an ICE car stopped by the side of the road, both blaming each other for having failed to fill it up the day before....

 

[VValleyEV]

It's technically infeasible to make EVs like petrol cars. "Mainstreaming" has to be about education rather than making EVs closer to petrol cars - if you don't change the expectations, saying "look! It's now only 5 times worse than your petrol car, rather than 8 times!" doesn't win the argument.

There are lots of things holding up mainstream adoption, but shaving a couple of minutes off best-case charge times doesn't solve any of them. Making charging more consistent - in terms of availability and rate is more important. Solving the issues of people who can't charge at home is the toughest one in the charging area, where the cost of provision is the real challenge.

THIS. Well said.

Main thing I am looking for in SC update is more consistent charging, ie an end to the “charge rate cut in half when the stall next to you is occupied”. I still see folks scratching their head on this and thinking it is their car’s fault. IMHO an increase in range to 400-500 miles will do more for EV option than modest increases in charging times. Full disclosure: I have placed a deposit on the Rivian R1T, and that 400 mile number was part of the attraction (aside from replacing the beloved but ICE Jeep Rubicon).

 

[Cosmacelf]

THIS. Well said.

Main thing I am looking for in SC update is more consistent charging, ie an end to the “charge rate cut in half when the stall next to you is occupied”. I still see folks scratching their head on this and thinking it is their car’s fault. IMHO an increase in range to 400-500 miles will do more for EV option than modest increases in charging times. Full disclosure: I have placed a deposit on the Rivian R1T, and that 400 mile number was part of the attraction (aside from replacing the beloved but ICE Jeep Rubicon).

Yes, everything Elon says isn’t correct. He’s stated that he doesn’t see a need for much more than 300 miles range. Well, I don’t see a need for ludicrous speed in a sedan, yet people buy it. IMHO one of the many design mistakes they made with the Model X was to introduce it with a 90 kWh battery. It was pitifully low for an electron sucking SUV (and that’s even before you tow anything). Rivian has this and many other things correct in the R1S.

 

[VValleyEV]

Yes, everything Elon says isn’t correct. He’s stated that he doesn’t see a need for much more than 300 miles range.

Wait. Elon said way back in the 1Q2018 earnings call that range is more important than charging speed:
“... It’s more important to have long range than it is to have a super fast charge time. You can sort of think about this in the devices that you use. Would you rather have a cellphone that charges in 5 minutes or 10 minutes, but only lasted 2 hours. Or, if you’d like a cellphone that can last two days, and maybe takes an hour to charge?”

IMHO this is not in contradiction to statements you have found that 300 miles is enough for most. Pretty much true, especially while Tesla is still king at 335 miles, but bumping that to 400+ miles can make a significant difference for trips of 500-600 miles in one day. One stop over lunch while charging to 80% would do it, as opposed to 2+ stops that are required now for a good safety margin. Strictly not “needed”, and most folks don’t travel that way very often, but very convenient. Really tips the scale for me when considering a non-Tesla alternative like Rivian. Puzzles me a bit about the “Tesla Killers” that are gorgeous but have relatively short range along with sketchy charging networks; guessing they figure you don’t need to take your $100k sports car on a road trip, you already have a Lexus for that.

 

[David99]

Technically it might be possible to go to ridiculous charging speeds but it comes at a huge cost of cooling system in the car (which adds weight and size) and infrastructure at the charging site. The question is, at what point do the cons outweigh the pros. Cutting down charging time from from 30 min to 15 min is a reasonable amount of time. Cutting it further down from 15 min to 7 min yields little to no advantage (people take longer breaks than 7 min) but it would cost tremendous amounts of cost and effort and extra hardware to make that possible.

On a typical supercharger stop you need to pick up 50 kWh which gives you 150-200 miles of range. To charge that in 15 min you need to charge at 200 kW. That's reasonable. In reality, after driving for 3-4 hours people take longer than just a 15 min breaks. There isn't a need to charge at crazy speeds because people don't do road trips like that. If someone is such a die hard road warrior that they need to drive for 6 hours straight and then want to be back on the road again within 5 min to drive another 500 miles, go ahead and take an ICE vehicle. There is no point in making a charging station and car much more expensive to cater to a tiny fraction of a user base that do these kind of crazy drives once a year. As long as the car can keep up with the common way people like to travel, that's all we need.

 

[schonelucht]

Currently the CharIN group is working on a CCS standard for high voltage (1200V-1500V) with a view of charging at speeds up to 1MW. Target is obviously not cars but trucks.