Electric vehicles take too long to recharge to be practical for most consumers.
Faster service: A Tesla charging station in Hawthorne, California.
Electric vehicles take too long to recharge. To charge a Tesla Model S just halfway takes five hours at a typical home or public charging station.
But in its effort to make electric vehicles more practical, Tesla Motors is quickly reducing the charging times. Last September, it unveiled a network of “supercharging” stations—designed exclusively for its Model S and future electric vehicles—that could charge a battery halfway in 30 minutes.
In May, it announced an upgrade that cut that time to 20 minutes. Now Tesla’s chief technology officer, JB Straubel, says the company eventually could cut the time it takes to fully charge the battery to just five minutes—or not much longer than it takes to fill a gas tank.
That system doesn’t charge batteries quickly. It simply takes out a depleted battery and replaces it with a fully charged one. He’s talking about what might be a more appealing option for drivers: recharging the battery in your car while you wait.
“It’s not going to happen in a year from now. It’s going to be hard. But I think we can get down to five to 10 minutes,” Straubel said in an interview with MIT Technology Review.
He noted that the current superchargers, which deliver 120 kilowatts of electricity, “seemed pretty crazy even 10 years ago.” Conventional public charging stations deliver well under 10 kilowatts.
Tesla is far ahead of its competition with its supercharging technology. For example, the most popular fast-charging technology today is based on the Japanese Chademo standard, which enables 50-kilowatt charging. Even SAE International’s brand-new fast-charging standard, which was finalized in October and is being adopted by major automakers such as GM, tops out at 100 kilowatts.
One reason Tesla has pushed the technology so aggressively is that its battery packs store more than three times the energy of its competitors’ electric-car batteries. As a result, they require more power to charge quickly, says Arindam Maitra, a senior project manager at the Electric Power Research Institute.
Straubel says Tesla has been able to rapidly improve charging because it designs and builds all of the key components itself, including the chargers, the electronics for monitoring the battery pack, and a cooling system for the battery. They’re all optimized to work together in a way that’s not easy for systems built to accommodate many different models of electric vehicles.
If an electric car is plugged directly into a wall socket, on-board chargers take AC power from the wall, convert it to DC, and regulate the power delivered to the battery. Fast charging or supercharging bypasses the onboard charger; the AC-to-DC conversion happens outside the vehicle.
One challenge of fast charging is that delivering power to a battery very rapidly can cause it to overheat. To avoid damaging the battery, the outside charger needs to communicate with the electronics that monitor the state of the batteries, including their voltage and temperature, and quickly adjust charging rates accordingly.
“To do that kind of charging, everything has to be designed and working in perfect synchrony,” Straubel says.
Achieving five-minute charges will require not only further improving the charging system, but also improving the interface with the electrical grid.
As it is, only some places on the grid can handle 120-kilowatt charging. Drawing large amounts of power from the grid also incurs demand charges from the utility, increasing the cost of the system.
But Straubel says that Tesla plans to get around these problems by equipping supercharging stations with solar panels and batteries.
They could provide utilities a way to moderate fluctuations on the grid, something that’s becoming more important as more intermittent sources of power, such as solar and wind, are added. Tesla plans to test such a system soon in California. It could charge utilities for this service, which, Straubel says, could help offset the cost of the stations.
Even though these fast-charging breakthroughs would be useful only on Tesla’s cars, they still could be important for expanding the EV market. Tesla plans to introduce cars in the $30,000 to $35,000 range in the next few years.
I do not post these with a mind that it is going to be many year from now. The excitement for Graphene and EV and Micro-grids and the revolution in Clean Tech is sweeping every bright mind in the Field of Batteries and Science. I think this is going to help SL Vein and MRL Corporation to be Counter-cyclical to the Troubled world Economy...
A Strategic Material Safe Harbor in an Storm of epic proportions in my opinion.
Here is some of my big picture thoughts...
One of the big reasons we have hugged near earth orbit (NEO) like scared bunnies is our material science was not up for real Space colonies like O'Neil Stations! Like most people of my age we watched 2001 and thought our future was out there in space. What we failed to understand watching Doctor Who; Star Trek and Star Wars was the basics of Space so that we don't perish...
We did not know about the costs; the risks; the fragility of our technology and how close we were numerous times to disaster as we raced to the Moon. We thought NASA Engineers and Astronauts could just keep going when the reason the Saturn Rocket was mothballed was simple: We did not have the Material Science to back up our Dreams!
Forward things to 2015 and GRAPHENE...
Space is going to be the Next Trillion Dollar Industry in my Opinion.
I Deduce an intersection of number of Technologies...
1. Long Life Batteries!
In Space Power is Life Support !
Power is a massive issue in space. Everything costs more and Fast Charging; Long Life Batteries are essential.
(The Genius Bigalow bought this brilliant patent and combine this with Graphene and it is a truly transformative tech heading towards Inflatable O'Neil Stations!)
3. Space x!
The Commercialization of Space and reusable Rockets are essential. Weight is a massive factor in calculating viability and Profitability. The properties and Weight of Graphene make it ideal for Space Rockets. The First to build a Rocket using Graphene will dominate the coming Race in my opinion.
I believe Space X has a real chance to be this company...
4. Robotics and Computers!
Graphene Chips and Robots are essential in Space. This is why companies are pouring Billions into Graphene Chips...
More then Driver-less Cars; Driver-less Mining Drones will be coming in my opinion.
5. Mining!
Asteroid mining is the exploitation of raw materials from asteroids and other minor planets, including near-Earth objects. Minerals and volatiles could be mined from an asteroid or spent comet then used in space for in-situ utilization (e.g. construction materials and rocket propellant) or taken back to Earth.
Cape Town - As mining companies struggle with the falling price of precious metals, the answer may lie in looking up.
One such company looking to tap space mining is US-based Planetary Resources, which is focused on asteroids as viable targets for precious metals.
The space rocks, which are the remains of the formation of the solar system, may contain higher concentrations of precious metals that can be mined efficiently.
"Distance to the asteroid is not as important as its composition because it's all relative in the amount of energy needed, which is why the company’s goal is to prospect potentially viable targets to determine what resources could be extracted," Stacey Tearne, vice president of communications at Planetary Resources, told Fin24.
Asteroids are roughly categorised into three classes according to Nasa: C-, S- and M-type, named for their composition. The primary targets for a mining project would be M-type bodies because of their higher metal composition.
"A fleet of spacecraft will travel to potential targets to validate the composition and other characteristics. The spacecraft will have special sensors that operate over a wide spectral range beyond traditional visible wavelength sensors to achieve these goals," said Tearne.
Robotic mining
Unlike Earth where deep mines are drilled to extract precious metal ore, heavy metals are thought to be evenly distributed throughout asteroids.
Planetary Resources calculates that a "1km diameter asteroid could contain about 7 500 tons of platinum".
On Earth, falling commodity prices have added pressure to the bottom-line of mining companies. Gold has dropped from a high of $1 220 an ounce in June to $1 088/oz in August.
It's much the same trend for silver and platinum over the last three months.
Watch this YouTube video on how asteroid mining might work to extract precious metals:
Beyond using robots to mine for metals, S-type asteroids, which are more common than target M-type, represent way stations for deep space operations.
"While less likely to contain hydrated minerals, silicates represent a potential source of building material and radiation protection for commercial and government space operations," said Planetary Resources which plans to launch its Arkyd Spacecraft in December 2015.
In theory, once space operations are under way, companies could save significantly as automated mining returns minerals to Earth.
International treaties
Furthermore, a number of Near Earth Objects (NEOs) regularly pass earth, reducing the expense of having to travel far out to space to capture an asteroid.
Data from Nasa shows that on August 5 and 6, four objects will come within 28 423 595km of Earth.
But mining space objects for precious metals does not violate international treaties on space, said Tearne.
"The plan to mine asteroids does not violate the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 as Planetary Resources does not seek to lay claim to any celestial body as a whole. In fact, recent passage of the Space Resources Exploration and Utilisation Act of 2015 (Space Act) by the US House of Representatives grants the ownership of minerals from space to the entity that extracted them."
What does space have to do with MRL Corporation undercutting the world market with GRAPHENE?
Well I think everyone is Space has to be aware of this Materials importance to them and their Governments place in this world.
SL Vein and MRL Corporations ability to turn ORE into GRAPHENE in 1 STEP is not just Disruptive and Undercutting it is an invitation to the Next Trillion Dollar Industry in my opinion.
Looking at my Crystal Ball; I think there is going to be more then one Tech Wave hitting the beach; each one greater then the last and so I think MRL Corporation can take its time and do everything right.
The Demand I think is going to be exciting and as the ORE is pulled up and converted to GRAPHENE I would not be surprised to see Space increasingly soak everything up.
Right now MRL Corporation is just sprouting and Producing for the first time. Once the Cashflow is established it will grow quickly I think. Sound Flakers and Veiners are going to Catch and Ride this wave all the way to the shore in my opinion.
Even though I shared these views for fun; part of me is very serious about the future of Space.
What do you think?
Kind Regards
To Make Mistakes is Easy !!! Could be 100% Wrong !!! To Err is Human !!! DYOR !!!
MRF Price at posting:
5.6¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held