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robertvasquez763 · 7 years

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1800 Miles per Hour: Ultrafast Charging Tech Moving Far Faster Than Anticipated

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Many who reject the option of an electric vehicle say that they’ll consider one only when EVs have the range for occasional long-distance drives and can recharge about as quickly as you can refill a car’s tank with gasoline. Well, that time is nearly here—a lot sooner than even many experts in charging technology anticipated.

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Charging hardware being installed this year will be upgradable to the capability to restore 300 miles or more of driving range in just 10 minutes. In “charging miles per hour,” as the upstart electric-car maker Faraday Future and others have called it, that’s 1800 mph.

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Although designed to be capable of that rate, few of these new-generation public-charging cabinets will be equipped to do so initially, in part because few cars are ready to swallow electrons as quickly as these devices can pump them into the batteries. The point is, we’re at a place in the evolution of electric cars in which commercial charging hardware is no longer trying to play catch-up to the batteries and the cars. Instead, charging technology is poised to be well ahead of the hardware on most cars, to a point that surprises industry insiders.

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Current DC fast charging, on either the CHAdeMO or Combined Charging System (CCS, or Combo) interfaces, runs at up to 50 kW—even though some carmakers list higher numbers that are still only theoretically possible. Both systems are in the process of being upgraded to be compatible for up to 150 kW, with the first publicly accessible chargers at that rate expected to be online late this year. Ultrafast chargers with compatibility to 350 kW and beyond—the charging ability that would get us nearly to gas-station fill speeds—are in the works, with a 350-kW test installation underway in Baker, California.

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“If you had told me seven years ago that we would be here talking about 350 kW, I would not have believed it at all—and now we’re talking about much more,” said Johan Peeters, vice president for marketing and sales at ABB, one of the leading producers of charging hardware.

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460 kW: Soon, the New Fastest Charging Lane

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How much more? Within a few years, a new high-powered CCS standard, employing a special liquid-cooled version of the connector that’s backward compatible with today’s vehicles, will be able to provide DC fast-charging power up to 460 kW, 920 volts, and 500 amps. That will surpass even the seemingly unbelievable 800-volt figure that seemed like far-off vaporware in 2015, when Porsche mentioned it in conjunction with its Mission E concept. That would allow more than 250 miles of recovered range in as little as 15 minutes.

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Even at such rates, experts caution that you’ll need a battery pack with range about 25 percent longer than the distances you seek to drive between charges. No matter the size of the pack, truly fast charging happens only for the first 80 percent of the capacity, Peeters noted, comparing it to pouring a glass of beer. Much depends on the technique and conditions, he said, but “you have to slow down for the last 20 percent or it will foam over.”

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Part of what has driven these deployment plans for fast-charging systems of 150 kW and higher, according to Peeters, is that lithium-ion battery packs are becoming more affordable—and thus larger—more rapidly than was anticipated some years ago. “Long story short, if you don’t have an EV with a 40-kWh battery, next year you’re out of business. It’s that simple,” he said.

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With current technology, cars with batteries in the 40- to 60-kWh range, of which there will soon be many, will take most of an hour to regain 80 percent after being fully discharged (or as near to that state as automakers will allow them to get). If drivers are heading out on long weekend drives, that hour is often too long for their purposes, Peeters and other charging-industry representatives argued at a recent panel on the topic.

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Yet, not everyone agrees that a bigger battery corresponds to the need for more fast-charging capability. “It really comes down to use case,” said Fred Ligouri of General Motors, who pointed out that the Chevrolet Bolt EV with its 60-kWh battery pack is easily capable of handling any daily-driving need for the vast majority of its drivers as well as most weekend-driving chores.

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Cross-Country Capacity for Premium EVs –

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Premium EVs will be distinguished from the proletarian versions not only by their larger battery packs but by their ability to charge those packs very quickly, a point Tesla is already illustrating with relatively modest capacities in comparison to what’s being proposed for the future. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has hinted that the company intends to go well beyond 350 kW. Chargers on the company’s Supercharger network today are capable of 145 kW, although Tesla vehicles charge at a maximum of 120 kW. As we discovered during our long-term test of a Tesla Model S P85D, cross-country travel is possible, but 45-minute Supercharger stops prove tedious, making quicker charges an enticing prospect.

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To accommodate both mainstream models at 50 kW and future premium models at 400 kW, commercial charging-hardware manufacturers and commercial charging networks need a lot of flexibility built in. That’s why several of the leading charging-equipment suppliers are looking at modular upgradable systems.

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ChargePoint took over all of GE’s commercial charging stations earlier this year and now claims to be the world’s largest charging network. The company has announced a new Express Plus architecture that’s 1000-volt compatible and employs combinations of liquid-cooled power modules and power cubes. The company notes that a car of comparable efficiency would recover 45 miles in 15 minutes from a 50-kW DC fast charger or 370 miles of range in the same time with 400-kW hardware.

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ABB, too, has designed its chargers—which ChargePoint rival EVgo will implement—with grid stabilization in mind, so that one of its 1.2-MV (AC) substations can power six of these dual-standard ultrafast chargers.

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With hardware that’s built to be upgraded over time, providers also need to be careful where they locate stations. As Michael Jones, ChargePoint’s vice president of sales, pointed out in a recent presentation, 400 kW equals the power demands of an entire grocery store.

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Because of improved, next-generation hardware, home charging may move from today’s rates of 3 to 7 kW up to 10 kW or beyond, while up to 50 kW (from 20 kW or less today) will be found at so-called Level 2 commercial charging locations, those found at shopping centers, restaurants, and parking lots. A third tier of commercial chargers will be focused around providing “charging on the road”—at the rapid rates cars need to quickly regain a significant amount of charge. For cars with smaller batteries, that would be up to 150 kW, while mainstream, midmarket EVs would offer 120- to 150-kW rates, and top-segment models would be capable of charging at 300 kW or more.

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A Host of Expensive Issues

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As these ultrafast chargers come online, public-charging providers (and automakers) will be faced with new issues. Beyond higher initial costs, these chargers can cost a lot to operate because of surcharges known as demand charges, which are levied by public utilities for energy draws beyond typically expected levels. According to EVgo, these demand fees make up about 80 percent of the operating costs for their chargers. Installing more stalls per site is one way to smooth out usage, bringing the demand-driven expenses down.

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Another issue is that—as programs such as Nissan’s No Charge to Charge have illustrated—users tend to opt for the fastest charger their vehicle can use, whether they need that faster rate or not. The Bolt EV’s predecessor, the Chevrolet Spark EV, saw about 80 percent of units sold with optional fast charging. Despite the Bolt’s mammoth improvement in range (238 miles versus the Spark’s 82, per the EPA), GM expects at least that same 80 percent will opt for fast charging on the Bolt EV.

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Automakers are quick to point out that ultrafast charging won’t come cheaply; it involves additional weight in the cars (for batteries and cooling systems) and research and durability testing to make sure battery packs can take it. Nevertheless, the newest fast-charging hardware paves the way for a handful of vehicles that will be able to make use of it. These include the Porsche Mission E, the Audi e-tron, and perhaps the Lucid Air and the Faraday Future FF91, that will start arriving in 2018 and 2019.

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Chargeway Aims to Make Choices at the Charger Easier Than at the Pump

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Free Fast Charging Is Helping to Sell EVs, But Should Automakers Subsidize It?

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First U.S. 350-kW Charging Station Will Allow Speedy L.A.-to-Vegas EV Road Trips

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With accelerated funding this past year from automakers including Nissan and BMW—and a surge of funds from Volkswagen’s dirty-diesel-atonement organization, Electrify America—it now appears that the hardware to charge at gas-station speeds is well on its way to wide availability. How much more will owners pay to recharge at “1800 mph”? Nobody will venture to say just yet, but as charging providers struggle toward profitability, ultrafast charging could prove to be the secret sauce that transforms the car market.

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#Engines #1800 Miles per Hour: Ultrafast Charging Tech Moving Far Faster Than Anticipated #car #engin

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colour-is-sound-blog · 8 years

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Colour Is Sound interview Steve Mallinder, co-founder of Cabaret Voltaire

It was both a pleasure and an education to grab an hour of Steve Mallinder’s time over a cuppa to find out what the co-founder of Cabaret Voltaire, now with the brilliant Wrangler, was up to.

Since forming Cabaret Voltaire in 1973 Mal has remained at the forefront of experimental electronic music whilst working across film, theatre and art to create new ways of hearing and contextualising sound. To see and feel things differently, and as required - to see things for what they really are.

One of his many projects is The Unfilmables, which brings together Wrangler, Francesca and Mica Levi. An extraordinarily ambitious imagined 40-minute abstraction of a film that was never made, in which the soundtrack and 'film' will be mixed live throughout the performance. The first of three shows is at the Brighton Dome Theatre on the 14th of May and will only be Wranglers second performance in 2017.

CIS: What got you into electronic music? Was it because it was all rock and no roll?

SM: That was the reason we did it. We formed in 73 and played our first gig in 75. It took the arrival of Punk to level the playing field and provide access to gigs. Before Punk there wasn’t any opportunities to play and we had spent quite a few years in our loft creating soundscape experiments. We used tape recorders, a home-built synth, an EMS VCS 3 synthesiser (the one Brian Eno used in Roxy Music, who were a big influence on us).

WE WERE MUCH MORE INTERESTED IN SOUND THAN FORMULA. WE LIKED GUITARS AND BANDS BUT WE WANTED TO DO SOMETHING VERY DIFFERENT TO THAT

There was a level of intellectualism in music back then; Bowie leading folks to Ballard and Boroughs, a portal into another world. Richard (Kirk, co-founder of Cabaret Voltaire) and I were skinheads, original soul boys from working class areas of Sheffield. We weren’t clever middle class intellectuals but we were instinctively drawn to the art side of music and performance. We took our name from the Dadaism movement. Rock n roll didn’t do it for us, abstract expressionism did. That’s where our influences were; on the arty side of things.

There was also acknowledgment that rock was out of your ‘reach’ and frame of reference financially. None of us were musically trained or could afford lessons and proper equipment. But we had this space in the loft and we worked away, messing about, hours of taped experiments, making noises. Rather than buy an amp we stuck the guitar through anything with an input to see what would happen to the sound.

OUR CIRCUMSTANCES LENT THEMSELVES TO EXPERIMENTING WITH SOUND RATHER THAN FORMING A 'BAND'

"Cabaret Voltaire's early training as media guerrillas vested them with the mobility to slip in and out of the mainstream earshot almost at will. As yet to be properly pinned down, they've sustained a campaign of civil and dancehall disobedience through more than 15 years. Filtering influences as diverse as Stockhausen, Can, early Roxy Music, Velvet Underground and James Brown through various tape and electronic devices, they have in turn infiltrated all manner of heresies and subversions into the often-conservative territory of dance music”. (Excerpt taken from Grey Area Mute catalogue, Copyright BIBA KOPF, NADA, 1990).

CIS: Having your own technologically enabled space, whether it be the loft, your first proper studio, Western Works, or now with Wrangler, that space is integral to your work. Has this enabled you to forge ahead with new musical discoveries free from the interference of the arbitrary taste makers? Does it stop you becoming jaded?

SM: Music has become part of me, of who I am. It’s what I do a lot of the time. Steve Cobby from Fila Brazillia, whom I collaborate with, said of what we do, “this is mental health for us”. It’s how we negotiate our lives and who we are, so there’s that part. There’s also that I still love doing it; experimenting with noise and sound. There’s also an element of never having achieved a level where you are trapped by your own creations, so I keep going. Perhaps Cabaret Voltaire did get to that point. There are also those times when you wonder why am I still doing this!

I did have a break, not for long, only 6 months when I went to Australia and intentionally took a step back. It was the mid 90’s and I remember saying at the time that I felt that music had become too easy. The development of home studios meant that anybody could turn out albums. For me the music had stopped being special. It wasn’t that I was cynical about what other people were doing, or a sense of elitism. Perhaps it had all become too formulaic. It had become a little like that in the Cabs in the early 90’s; release two albums a year, sell them to the same people, do six shows, do this and do that and then do it all again next year. I didn’t want that routine for the rest of my life so I went looking for a change.

CIS: So much seminal music is borne from great mistakes and spontaneity. The wide spread availability of hardware and software offering touch of a button solutions out of a box, potentially erodes and dilutes the invisible hand of brilliant experimental accidents. How does Wrangler avoid this?

SM: By not using computers. That’s a lie in the sense that we use computers live to trigger loops but when we make music it’s all done on analogue and modular gear, old drum machines and effects pedals. It’s a bit of a step back in time our studio, but it is of that era when making electronic music was tactile and hands-on. I don’t like sitting in front of a laptop.

CIS: Laptop watching; the modern recording obsession of looking at, rather than listening to music.

SM: Yeah exactly and it’s not collaborative although folks have managed to interact, it’s just not my thing. I am not from the digital era which is very rule based. It’s not my natural habitat. I like messing around with things. Wrangler were recording last week and we got really into this old bit of kit we had obtained which had a three second sample time. I became the drum machine; mouthing the sounds, capturing three second samples and it sounded great! This bit of gear had its own character and noise but most folks would have thrown it in the bin. We made three tracks out of it. Glitches and distortions and the nature of those sounds is part of the very fabric of the songs.

I LOVE THE POWER OF MACHINES, WHICH YOU DON’T GET WITH A COMPUTER. I KNOW A SEQUENCER OR A DRUM MACHINES IS NOT SPECIFICALLY MECHANICAL, BUT THEY WORK IN A MECHANICAL WAY.

I enjoy working within and subverting the limitations of mechanical processes. Music by artists rather than music by engineers.

CIS: Musically, who inspires you?

SM: Our new drum machine! As soon as we turned it on it was one of those “fuck that’s good” moments.

I listen to such varied musical styles and I dip into so many different things. Off the top of my head, I’ve been listening to the new Scott Walker LP, Johan Johanssen, Demdyke Stare, Kemper Norton, Billy Holiday, DJ Food’s remixes of Aphex Twin. Crooked Man’s new album is fucking great. Juan Atkins Cybertron from 1980. There is a new band called Africaine 808 from London, who are brilliant. All kinds of shit. There’s tracks where I’ve no idea what era they come from. The other day I was listening to ‘Riot in Lagos’ by Ryuichi Sakamoto. It’s from 1984 but could easily be released in the here and now.

(CIS: From the minute, we met it was apparent that I was in the company of a fella with an encyclopaedic knowledge and passion for music, art and experimentation, but not a hint of pretence, bullshit or stardom. Top bloke!)

CIS: White Glue by Wrangler is a brilliant record. Each tune evolves across multiple melody lines, counter melodies and abstractions. A pulsing weaving electronic symphony. A record which offers warmth within a world mired in decay, cold futurism and decadence, where the game is rigged in favour of the few. Despite its sonic density and conceptual heaviness, its bloody great to dance to (standing up or lying down).

SM: There’s a level of intelligence to it, to avoid lyrics which were throw away. White Glue is very different to the first album which is much darker and more dystopian, rawer, rough-edged. We’ve been around a wee while now and the audience has morphed from hardcore Cabs fans to a cross-mix of the old guard to folks who never heard CV but who dig us and love electronic music.

CIS: Warp Records label owner Steve Beckett remembers the ‘new Yorkshire house' sound as evolving from north England reggae systems:

“People like Ital Rockers in Leeds who didn’t get as much recognition, but who were doing the mental-est records ever. They’d cut just 20 or 30 tracks on acetate, and have sound-system parties underneath this hotel. No lights, 200 people, and they’d play reggae, then hip hop, then these bleep and bass tunes. And they’d be toasting on top of it”. (Excerpt from the brilliant Energy Flash by Simon Reynolds)

What was your take on House music?

SM: Going to Chicago to find Marshall Jefferson to produce Groovy, Laidback And Nasty! Along with Detroit, Chicago played a pivotal role in the development of House music. I loved the music, the city and some of the friendliest people you could ever hope to meet. We'd been making house music for years before 88. Its electronic music.

CIS: I must ask you about your involvement in the early days of New Order?

SM: We were friends, Joy Division and Cabaret Voltaire and we did what friends would do. We offered New Order our studio so they could have some peace and quiet to go about demoing new songs for their new band. That’s it really. The tapes are available on YouTube. I even had a go at singing vocals. So did Rob Gretton, everyone did.

CIS: Nice one Mal, I think we’re done.

SM: A pleasure, all the best.

#cabaret voltaire #wrangler #electronica #industrial music #housemusic #techno #warprecords #music t shirt #music tees #design #colour is sound #music #band #blog #band tshirt #music tshirt

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robertvasquez763 · 7 years

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1800 Miles per Hour: Ultrafast Charging Tech Moving Far Faster Than Anticipated

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460 kW: Soon, the New Fastest Charging Lane

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Cross-Country Capacity for Premium EVs –

–

A Host of Expensive Issues

–

Chargeway Aims to Make Choices at the Charger Easier Than at the Pump

–

Free Fast Charging Is Helping to Sell EVs, But Should Automakers Subsidize It?

–

First U.S. 350-kW Charging Station Will Allow Speedy L.A.-to-Vegas EV Road Trips

–

from remotecar http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/caranddriver/blog/~3/cnqiT99f4WI/

via WordPress https://robertvasquez123.wordpress.com/2017/07/25/1800-miles-per-hour-ultrafast-charging-tech-moving-far-faster-than-anticipated/

#Engines #1800 Miles per Hour: Ultrafast Charging Tech Moving Far Faster Than Anticipated #car #engin

0 notes