eVehicles

[pet-els]

MB re new vehicle Sprinter and eSprinter and FWD.

http://www.truckinginfo.com/channel/equ ... ivity.aspx

[T1 Terry]

One way around the emission/lack of power problem, hand out the polluting power fix to aftermarket operators so the problem doesn't come back to bit the butt of the factory engineers. I'm guessing the petrol option and battery hybrid option is to get around the lack of power the diesel powered units would have after all the emissions standards are met.

T1 Terry

[SteveW]

Terry, would it be practical to create a fully electric vehicle and home charging system but with an on-board generator for emergencies or for the lunch break charging half way between Adelaide and Melbourne?

[T1 Terry]

Terry, would it be practical to create a fully electric vehicle and home charging system but with an on-board generator for emergencies or for the lunch break charging half way between Adelaide and Melbourne?

A topic that comes up often on the electric vehicle forums, they call it a range extender. Fortunately there is an ever increasing network of charging stations being rolled out so the generator would be redundant on all but the back roads very soon. The fact just about all vehicles have on board charging means you really only need to find a power point. The newer builds have 3 phase fast charging as well as 15 amp single phase and 10 amp single phase if that is all that is available. The 3 phase units can bring the battery up to 80% in around 30 mins, about the average quick refuel time at a servo on a trip cause everyone needs a trip to the loo and a coffee and ........ Most people don't realise just how long they spend at a servo refuelling, worth recording just to relieve that range anxiety /recharge time most people put up as defence wall against electric vehicle adoption. Most major truck stops have 3 phase plug in points these days for the freezer trucks to drop trailers and every caravan park is a potential 15 amp single phase recharge station .......

T1 Terry

[Barboots]

A big difference however, is that the current motor vehicle does not stay on the pump for 30 minutes. Having enough "ports" and space on the forecourt will ultimately be an issue unless charging times can be reduced significantly.

[Boblebago]

Terry, would it be practical to create a fully electric vehicle and home charging system but with an on-board generator for emergencies or for the lunch break charging half way between Adelaide and Melbourne?

There is an electric vehicle charging station at Keith on the Dukes highway.

[pet-els]

Geoff ring me 0427190337

PeterH

[T1 Terry]

A big difference however, is that the current motor vehicle does not stay on the pump for 30 minutes. Having enough "ports" and space on the forecourt will ultimately be an issue unless charging times can be reduced significantly.

Fair point, I think the next big change will be induction charging so you just park over the charging plates. The vehicle would talk to the charger, arrange the payment and voltage it wants and all happen automatically. At the moment the vehicle has an app that tells you your car is recharged and I believe there are pans a foot to allow a 15 min grace period before the charging station starts charging your credit card a late parking fee till you unplug and drive away to stop some people using the spot as a car parking space. No idea regarding the finer details such as the way they plan to stop non electric vehicle parking in the charging bays but no doubt that is being addressed as well. The change is happening much faster than the change from horse and cart to automobiles and they say that was only 20 yrs or so.
With a lot of the European countries announcing that no new petrol or diesel fuelled vehicles will be accepted for registration by 2040 the car manufacturers are being forced into developing electric cars to replace their current fuel burning models. After that it may become a bit like finding horse stables as you ride into town when it comes to looking for a petrol station, there are so many that have already gone it can be a bit like that now.

T1 Terry

[native pepper]

They are already using capacitors to take fast charges and then they trickle to the pack. It won't be long before you can buy a super super capacitor bank that will fit in your car and feed your lithium, as well as run the vehicle to save the pack supply.

In a private EV experimenter forum I listen in on, the blokes my old mate collaborated with, have built a super capacity pack and driven over 2000 klms making 15minute stops which fully charged the capacitors and allowed them to drive well over 100klms just on the capacitors. They say they got home with a full lifepo4 pack and are redesigning a car so there are capacitors lines throughout the body length, the car will run purely on capacitor power and the lifepop4 pack will run the accessories and back up the capacitors. Their aim is to get over 1000klms without recharge, using capacitors and lifepo4, with no stops.

Currently when they stop for a capacitor charge, the car then runs on the caps whilst topping up the pack. When the capacitors run down, the vehicle switches to the pack. Reckon it will all be solved in the next year or so, they don't release technical details, as my old mate used to say, if you've got the nous, you can work it out yourself. Which leaves me out.

One bloke has a big electric bus, which has 3kw of solar on it and that charges the bus as well as the house pack. He has a form of regenerative charging when braking and reckons he gets a huge amount of recharge when descending big hills, he's driven it from Canada to Mexico and back. Once they get things sorted, he intends lining the body skin with caps to extend his range even further.

[T1 Terry]

Combination capacitor and LYP cells are already on the market and the idea goes all the way back to lead acid battery days. The latest trend is pulse charging the cells directly as they can handle 20CA pulse charging, even at a 50% duty cycle that's 10 mins to charge a 100Ah battery. A battery built up as a 720v x 100Ah capacity would give 72kWh of storage that could be pulse charged in 10 mins. Building the charging grid is the problem, the average house uses between 10kWh and 20kWh per 24hrs. With peak demand only occurring for a few hrs each day there is a lot of spare grid capacity available during the off peak periods, but how do you store that in a way that it can be virtually trickle charged at the rate a few households would normally use during peak load periods but during the off peak periods, and then release it in a 10 min charge cycle. You can't discharge capacitors that have stored that much energy that fast without them over heating and exploding, the same goes for recharging them so current control in both direction would be required, that one is the tricky bit.
One of the major issues faced in electric vehicles is charging the capacitor pack in the VFD (Variable Frequency Drive) that converts the DC to AC so it can power the 3 phase motors. Charged too fast and the capacitor explode, not instantly closing or trying to break this huge current draw results in the contactors welding together and contactor bounce is a common problem. At the moment a pre-charge circuit is required so the capacitors recharge at a controlled rate and that takes time. Maybe only 30 secs or so but we are talking about a much smaller capacitor pack than one with enough storage to drive an electric vehicle for even 100kms.

T1 Terry