Featured Solid State Battery 10 Minute Charge Toyota - Lets Go Places

Wow....infighting over batteries...imagine that.

My take on it is that *all* new battery technologies push competition and innovation...and in the long run that is what matters.

But who am I to argue..I'm still running on 10 year old battery packs!

 

SIGH.
With the battery capacities being discussed AND the present power infrastructure in place............
It can NOT be done in a reasonable fashion.
Please note the key words.

 

It can - just not for millions of cars or widely.

The supercharger station in Hays, KS, for example, is fed by a 1 MW transformer. I have 20MW available at my office and lots of commercial establishments draw 1-10MW on a daily basis.

 

I thought I covered that with "in a reasonable fashion".
Guess not.
Thanks for adding some more key words.

 

I found it quite ironic that Toyota was the big proponent that really fast charging for bevs wasn't possible because you can't build the infrastructure, but now are talking about 10 minutes. But of course I agree with you its not going to happen on any region or nation wide network. 350 kw seems to be the sweet spot with today's tech and 250 kw and 350 kw are what they are building now. I'm not sure who this is not good enough for light vehicles. For apartment complexes and offices its probably a lot cheaper to build a bunch of 7 kw chargers and let people park at them for hours. For faster fueling tesla and nio demonstrated battery swap stations. Still people don't want to pay for those. I do want tesla to upgrade the charges by me to 250 kw v3, which they plan to do, but really the current speed is fast enough for me. Still toyota could put a 55 kwh battery in it and charge it for 200 miles in 10 minutes and it would be impressive and could use those 350 kw chargers being built.

We should see some really expensive to build very high powered chargers for the tesla semi and other trucks, as well as chargers for racing. Trucks don't really need a 10 minute refueling, but high power will be required to charge the huge battery packs.

 

There's no sweet spot from an infrastructure point of view. You can get feeds and transformers of any size. I've personally bought transformers from 1W to 3.5MW and designed lines up to 33MW, and that's not transmission level. Two of my most important projects at work were 650kW and getting feeds and parts for those was easy and right in the normal commercial range.

 

You just don't seem to be understanding the point here.

Nobody is saying that it is not POSSIBLE, but that it isn't even close to being practical for widespread use.
What you describe is ONE project, probably in an area built out with power for commercial and industrial users.

Having an area with thousands of devices having a demand like that might necessitate rebuilding the distribution network most of the way back to the generating station........and upping the capacity there too.

I quit.

 

As I said, you can't do it widely. But you also don't have to. You don't need it in cities where most people charge at home, and you only need it at isolated places along the highways for road trips. And there the charging rate doesn't really impact the infrastructure much. Whether the 1MW transformer I mentioned charges 9 Teslas in an hour or three Toyotas in 20 minutes makes no difference.

 

That sort of works, but in this situation you would end up with that 1MW transformer feeding 9 teslas in an hour or 9 Toyotas in an hour. If the stall is empty someone will use it.

I do agree that the average person who can charge at home will not need a supercharger for day to day driving.

Dan

 

Fast forward 10 years when 50% of the cars are EVs. Now tell me what infrastructure will need to be in place to allow refueling. EVs take longer than gas. Gas stations are at almost every intersection. Gas stations in dense areas can have 20 stalls. I think of trips up 95 on the east coast where I refuel at the same cheap station midway on my trip every time. Must be 20 pumps there (sometimes I have to wait) and if they are too busy there are two other gas stations of equal size within a hundred yards. Refueling today takes 5 minutes. Say an average EV takes 20. To duplicate the existing refueling capability, does that mean we now need 4 times 3 times 20 stalls at that one interstate stop. Not to mention the ones at the prior and previous exits? And this all assumes home charging to 100% before I start.

That is a lot of needed infrastructure folks, the gas infrastructure we today take for granted because it was built up over decades. And there better be a standard plug that everyone agrees on or the investment problem gets worse.

 

Mike,

The percentage of EV sales has to be higher than 50% for more than 10 years before the population of EVs in use will get to 50%. The current sales of EVs is far less so it will be much longer than 10 years before the magnitude of the charging infrastructure problem gets that severe.

JeffD

 

Mike has a point BUT... It ignores the average user's ability to start every trip with a "full tank" from charging at home overnight. As an example, during the pandemic I have not needed to use a public charger AND I have not needed to use gasoline. I run all of our errands in my Prius. You can do a lot within 15 miles of home. You can do even more when the battery is recharged while you are unpacking the groceries and eating lunch. IIRC (If I recall correctly) 95% of the people travel less than 30 miles a day in their car.

So when you have 50% of the cars running off batteries you will have a huge percentage that don't need fast charging. If you drive 30 miles you only need to charge for a couple hours on level 2 to top off the battery pack. That leaves the long distance drivers who commute from one county to another. If you are commuting 250 miles a day (I've done that) you will need a way to recharge a bit faster. But that's a rare case.

Personally, I'm looking at installing solar this year, and that should allow me to charge both cars without adding any load to the grid.

Dan

 

Where are you getting numbers from? Think about what "huge" and "need" supposedly represent. What does it mean for a household with only 120-volt charging? That only fulfills a minimum for a single vehicle. Those not living in a home (apartment, condo, townhouse) will face even greater challenge. Being able to fast-charge is very much part of the formula for growth.

 

What is needed is some coordinated planning.
The design and infrastructure of the future might be induction power IN the roads.

MY WHOLE POINT IN COMMENTING was about the headline focusing on charging in 10 minutes......and the fact that is NOT as simple as it might appear.

 

Why won't there be PHEVs around?
Why won't we have more renewable fuels for those engines by that time?

 

Maybe I could have phrased that differently. How about "you will have a huge percentage that don't need fast charging on a day to day basis".

My source for miles per day? I once found a nice government site with a decent study on miles traveled, but this AAA report has much the same information. New Study Reveals When, Where and How Much Motorists Drive | AAA Newsroom "On average, Americans drive 29.2 miles per day, making two trips with an average total duration of 46 minutes." If you drive an efficient model such as the Prius Prime or Tesla Model 3, that 29 miles will only require a charge of around 7kWh per day, or two hours on a level 2 charger.

My source for "50% EV in 10 years"? That was referring to Mike's post #170.

People living in HDH (high density housing) will always have problems when they go outside the norm. The apartments I lived in had limits on the number of cars that you were allowed to park on premise. My first apartment allowed only 1. Over time I'd expect that charging ability would be used as a "selling point" just as broadband internet and cable TV are used today. I would not expect people to buy an EV if they don't have a way to charge it. Maybe that's why Mike posited 50% EV in 10 years instead of a higher number?

 

As for charging needs for long trips, yes, more stalls will be needed. Which will have an upfront cost, but they won't have the ongoing costs a gas stations has; meeting environmental regulations, spill clean up, and the periodic replacement of the underground tanks. Those costs also limit where stations can be built. Chargers can be installed at the restaurants and shopping centers also found at the highway exits with the gas stations.

Then all these chargers don't need to be installed right away.

 

It would take some educating the people and the government to promote PHEV as a viable alternative. We have politicians who are pushing to rid the world of all gasoline powered vehicles without recognizing the distinctions between various designs. I find the average person is pretty ignorant when it comes to hybrids in general. Even when you try, it's hard to keep track of all the current offerings and their flaws and advantages.


Dan

 

We need to be able to charge at home if we are to be EV-dominant. Many people will have to install some hardware for that (I just did, by the way - there's now a 125A panel in my garage), and apartments especially will have to. However, if you do that, the number of "gas stations" in the US can drop from 120,000 to something like 2,000 EV fast-charge locations because you only need them when you are on a road trip.

And here's the thing - you don't even need fast chargers if you are on a road trip if the cars have a day's worth of range (~600 miles/1000km). In that case, you can just need destination charging at hotels and such. And the fast and cheap way to do that is just to install NEMA 14-50 receptacles and have owners bring their own charging cords. Such a system could put over 100kWh into a car during a night's sleep. Add 50kW charging at restaurants on the open road and getting 50kWh during lunch extends your range another couple hundred miles.

You only need fast charging if the cars have lousy range like today's EVs do or if you plan to drive 24 hours a day. I admit, I did do an 18 hour non-stop drive once so that's not out of the question so you might need a small number of fast chargers for drives like that or for people sucking energy like crazy because they are towing a boat or 5th-wheel or something.

 

Sigh
The largest US charging station has 56 v3 250 kw chargers. That adds up to 14 MW but there are battery buffers and no car today is going to take that 250 kw for long periods of time, but sure make the grid connection upgradable and the battery buffers. Tesla is testing their semi by bridging together 4 superchargers. I don't think they have decided on a higher power charging yet. China is working on a 900 kw standard. ccs peaks out at 350 A x 1000 V 350kw, but currently only has one model that can charge close to it. There is no reason to build most of the chargers to standards that still are TBD and all of them need different plugs and more expensive hardware.

You say you built projects with commercially available hardware, but this does not exist for chargers which is what I was talking about.
Context is important.

If you build 40 chargers @ 1 MW versus 56 chargers at 350 kw peak charging speed, then you will have spent a lot more money and actually increase the time that people wait for chargers as today's vehicles can't charge faster than 350 kw. My guess is more of these chargers not higher powered chargers are what will proliferate because of costs and vehicles. There will be some faster chargers. I expect these will be in my city first as that is where they are building the semi, and there is a racetrack for testing cars ;-)