JFE Engineering in Japan develops 3-minute EV fast charger

That’s the problem with electric vehicles, when the batteries go flat, they take too long to recharge. Not any more though. A Japanese company known as JFE Engineering have made strong development progress which could see battery charge times slashed from hours to just a few minutes.

Outlined in a recent JapanToday report, JFE Engineering claimed to have produced a quick charger which can replenish 50 percent of an EV’s battery level in just three minutes. The company also claims the system could recharge up to 70 percent in just five minutes.

JFE Engineering says it is pursuing EV charge times that would be on par with equivalent refueling times typically undertaken at the fuel station. “We have shortened the charging time to three minutes, the same amount of time for refueling petrol or making a simple purchase,’’ an official of the company said in the report.

This could be a huge step forward towards smooth integration of the EV into our current infrastructure and way of living. Compared to the latest EV recharge offerings, some of which require an over-night charge, this new quick charge system would allow us to ‘refuel’ at the station on the go.

The company hopes their new product will be available to the public at petrol stations and other roadside vendors by the end of March, 2011.

Karl Krankschaft

This technology could really change the way we look at electric cars. At the moment they don’t travel far enough on a charge that takes a considerable amount of time. This could make electric cars a viable option. Unfortunately if electric cars do take off we will all miss the sound of exploding petrol.
J

This is going to take some serious effort from power distribution perspective, or will require new ways of generating/storing power at the charge point.

Transferring 20kWh of charge in 3 minutes requires big values of both voltage and current (400kW constant for three minutes to transfer this much energy!) – bigger than current distribution system would be designed to cope with!

I hope it happens though!

Shak

I guess you could move the giant tanks of petrol underground, and put generators in their place. That way, Servo’s become self sustaining and dont have to drain power from the grid.

Hung Low

You will still need fuel storage for the generators!
J

Was that sarcasm? I sure hope so…

Better option would be to put big energy storage devices where those tanks used to be (massive flywheel, or some other clean/safe-ish device) and smooth the demand on the grid. Still adds load, but at least not enormous peaks.

Shak

Thats what i was getting at. generator was the wrong word. Alternatives such as EV and Hydrogen should be installed alongside conventional fuels for the time being until we come up with dedicated EV/Hydrogen Filling stations.

Paul

These chargers use local battery storage.

What is it with the ignorant, always looking for how technology they know nothing about won’t work.

The Other Brad

Wonder what effect it might have on battery life?
Shak

This is what the Ev world has been waiting for. the whole quarrel was that we have to get rid of existing infrastructure and build new ones. With this all we have to do is install EV stations alongside Petrol pumps until Fossil fuels become a thing of the past
Bezza

What about Bluetoothing or WiFiing the power right into the car as it gads about? They have phone/iPod charging mats so why not somehow grab power from signals in the air.

Imagine if you could charge off free-to-air TV signals or something!!

Hung Low

I hope you were kidding!! If that was possible we could control and predict lightning strikes!

Shak

It was possible at one point, but like many other sources we discovered 100 years ago, the Scientific world gave up on them. Mr. Nikola Tesla had the idea of transporting electricity much in the same way as Radio waves, but due to the limited tech of his day, was unable to do so in large quantities so the scientific community labelled it a failure. Until today, when we have started to send electricity in small amounts to portable devices, although they have to have a physical connection to a power generating device. Unfortunately, like any other new tech, it is costly and the oil barons dont want anything to do with it because it isnt made or dino-sludge and doesnt cost $70 a barrel.

ferd

Like Brad, I also wonder how this would effect battery life. Also, is it safe enough for technically-challenged people to operate? During a rainstorm?
JEKYL & HYDE

i need something like this for my back,my wife,and my golf game…
mark smith

This has to be a joke article with an incorrect picture. For one it\’s can the battery cope with being charged that quickly – probably not. Next!
2nd – to charge half a 20kWh pack in 3 minutes = supplying 10000 watt hours of storage to a car in 1/20th of an hour… the current load is massive – that would be the same as would supply several hundred houses.
The Nissan leaf is capable of being fast charged on 450kV 3 phase charger that will charge the battery to 80% in 26 minutes (it also has a 110/220v charger that takes 14 or 7 hours). The 440v cable is as fat as a normal petrol hose! How fat would a cable be that could charge the car in 3 minutes

http://www.cvandewater.com Cor van de Water

If you know about electric engineering then you know that the way to transport large amounts of power through thin wires is only a matter of jacking up the voltage.
The connector that is held up in the picture looks like it can take a healthy voltage via 4 contacts, so 3-phase.
Standard industrial IEC 60309 connectors are defined up to 690V and most common handle up to 63A but there are also 125 and 200A variants. The presented connector looks like a slightly modified IEC60309 with heavy duty contacts, so
let’s assume it transports 690V 200A 3-phase. That is right about 400kW…. Go to higher voltage and the cable diameter goes down due to the lower current.
Even the good old lead-acid batteries can be recharged to about 80% as quickly as they can be discharged. Meaning that for the better constructed batteries, a charge current of 500 to 1000 Amp is not a problem as long as you monitor closely. My 1994 EV could already charge at up to 200A into a 312V nominal pack, transferring about 70kW so a recharge time of under 10 min into a typical EV sized pack was already possible for a very long time. It has only become more common with higher performance EVs.
And for the people moaning about the grid overload: How much attention does a new subdivision get where each house gets at least 400A service to power all their airco’s so each of the homes can suck up to 100kW from the grid at peak hour, which is a much higher load than the odd high-speed charge station that you will find to serve the 5% of EV’ers that occasionally need a quick refill, while the other 95% or more will simply recharge during the night and only help equalize the load and make the power companies happy.

Paul M

As Mark pointed out, the battery has to be capable of accepting the charge. I’m not aware of batteries able to take this much energy is so short a time. Altair nano was making some pretty good claims about charging time, but I haven’t seen much from them in the last few years. If you overheat the batteries, it seriously diminishes the number of recharges. I’m not sure a quick charge at the expense of replacing the battery pack much sooner is a good tradeoff.
As to upping the voltage to reduce the current, yes that is corect, but now it requires the vehicle to be able to convert the higher voltage to the required voltage. Without standards, I doubt this will happen anytime soon.