Toyota's plug-in hybrids getting companion charging stations next year in Japan
By Ross Miller 
posted December 27th 2009 1:41AM
posted December 27th 2009 1:41AM
posted December 27th 2009 1:41AM
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How many days does it take to charge?
@jol:
the station could be grid connected such that it merely offsets power when not charging a car. in that case the cars would always receive full rated power, even at rapid charge levels, by drawing from the grid directly.
charging time would then be limited by the hardware of the car, but considering the plug-in prius has a smallish battery (5.2 kWh lithium ion), it would most likely charge in a few hours at the lowest rate, and minutes at the highest.
LOL. I remember when my local Wal-Mart got charging stations for that GM EV1 thing. It was a big deal around here. They're still there, all vandalized and stuff.
So what there's no cute Japanese girl waiting there to plug my car in? At least a beverage/food station!
most of the solar energy will be used up in a single charge, meh.
@Billy What? Solar energy is finite? Shit, man. Who forgot to sacrifice the goat to make the sun rise in your world?
If you do a sun dance it will charge faster.
This reminds me a lot of a chapter within "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" by Thomas L. Friedman, the chapter where he describes a possible 2020 where our cars work for us instead of the other way around. He describes something just like this in that little glimpse into the future.
What does the system do if it goes over its charge limit? Does it add the power to the grid?
they should just set these up at sonic. charge your car and nourish your hunger
yea, folks we almost there. Where you ask ?. Lala land.
There's one more view of that station they won't show you, from the bottom. It's simply thick electrical cable that's going to closest electrical substation.
P.S.
Wake me up when we are "there". ;)
Question is, how much will they charge to use it?
As always, in the US 5 times less than everywhere else.
@Wwhat Unless Comcast owns it. And in that case you won't get to charge it to full and you will be charged the price of the solar panels per charge.
It takes my car a good 3-5 mins. to fill up with gasoline (depending on the fuel rate of the pump). How are they going to top that with electric vehicles. I can only imagine how impatient most people would be. This seems a little far fetched. Unless they are suppling massive amounts to electricity to this thing. What's the recharge rate on those batteries anyway? Or maybe they just give you enough juice to go home and make a full charge.
Yeah I bet your time is real valuable that it has to be done on 60 secs, so use it to read reports, or more realistically, some anime, on your xmas kindle?
@InternetJunkie06 Does it take you 5 minutes to go shopping or work for the entire day?
@InternetJunkie06
It's a hybrid, not an electric car. If you don't have any EV-only battery power left, then you use the motor. For the Chevy Volt, if you run down the drive battery, then the range extender kicks in and charges your batteries.
Relax.
OK, I estimate 72 square meters of solar panels there and the solar energy available is about 1 kW per square meter at noon but you have to divide that by about 3 for day/night duty cycle so 72/3 =24 kW of solar light power. If we guess a generous 5% efficiency on the cells we can expect an average of 4.8 kW from that intallation. Now a kilowatt will generate about one horsepower in an electric motor so we are talking approximately 5 horsepower hours to share among three vehicles leaving 1.66 horsepower hours per car. It might get you home if you don't live too far away. Those panels will probably cost as much as a car though, and require lots of energy to manufacture. They don't last forever either. Wiggle the numbers if you like. Same result.
Last I heard they reached 15% efficiency, not sure why 5% is generous.
@Wwhat Current maximum efficiency is 30+%. Only plastic based cells are under 10%.
@(Unverified)
Thanks for the update
Yeah, I knew someone would call me on that. I did see 8% efficiency quoted for amorphous silicon cells. If you add a little dust, or rain, or snow on that flat roof which is not inclined to an optimum sun angle, 5% still looks generous. Use any number you like but realize that the higher efficiency cells will cost more.
I did forget to mention that the numbers I stated were on a per hour basis so multiply by 24 for daily production in sunny weather.
Still seems like a lot of expense to produce the equivalent of about eight gallons of gas per day to share among cars (one gallon is about 14 horsepower hour).
@cmoswizard:
when you consider the mileage of the prius, those "gallons", even split between three cars, would make a huge difference to the number of times one would have to load up on arabian dino-juice.
the electric-only range of the plug-in prius is quite limited, but very practical, so these panels are undoubtedly a good match.
also... it's not the end of the road for solar charging stations, just the beginning. imagine the beloved walmarts of america having their entire bog-box lid plastered in solar panels? (yep, the panels will make economic sense very soon). these could feel local batteries such that when you plug in your plug-in, it can suck back the electrons as fast as it can swallow. with the latest batteries, that would mean charging time in the minutes, not hours.
that seems to be the great oversight on this issue. we want to trade individual energy consumption for a community deal. the thing is what we don't know won't hurt us (if the energy is consumed at some major installation that we do not see everyday it must not be happening, right?) our cars are all electric they don't pollute (and our crap don't stink either). it's the same old crap but, a new day. to the new generation of saviors to mankind i say "welcome to the real world" and good luck.
@YukonJack Electricity plants are more efficient than car motors though.
especially those that are hydro powered. we need more power generated by the seas motion as well.
The real problem is that the energy used to produce those solar panels will never be equaled by the total power output of the panels in their lifetimes. This is true because Japan is TOO FAR NORTH for photovoltaic solar cells to reach breakeven. Maybe in Malasia, Southern California, Nevada, and other, more equatorial regions. Oh, and they have to be DRY equatorial regions, as cloud cover kills the output as well.
So, the PV arrays, Net CO2 producers in Japan.
Anybody looked into Nickel Metal Hydride battery production pollution?
Meh...
@(Unverified) :
please show me your calculations.
And when it rains.....?
http://gisnap.com
The place where fun never ends.
Clean energy sounds so GREAT!!! Of course you never hear how Solar only works when the sun is up and not blocked!!! What do you do with the rest of that time, Sit in the dark??? Wind is great also, except those time when it's not blowing, or blowing hard enough. Again, what are you going to do, sit in the dark??? Add in the Energy required to MAKE those devices and it's costly. Not to mention CHINA makes most of it!!!
The ONLY clean and reliable 24 hour a day, 7 day a week power there is, would be Nuclear Power!!! Even the founder of Green Peace is now for Nuclear. Because of stopping them here in the U.S., we have many more COAL plants instead, throwing up TONS of Radioactive crap into the Air. You could cover the Entire U.S. with solar Panels and it would only be a drop in the bucket of the power needed.
Solar and even Wind is great for a supplement. You have a Log Cabin out in the Woods with no near by power lines, Solar and/or Wind is a option. Solar on your Roof to supplement power, and keep you power bill down some can be a good Idea. On really hot days and the power grid goes out, you could still run your AC and keep cool. On the other hand, getting into the whole Battery mess is quite costly and not worth it.
To charge all these new Electric Cars, what's going to happen??? The power grid here in California is already overtaxed, with a bunch of cars charging, More power outages. Secondly, the Car is clean, but all it's really doing is shifting the pollution from that car to the power plants which is less efficient and still more pollution.
When you start thinking about these things, you realize this is just make you feel good bogus crap. What to be green and clean, WALK!!! Or a little less green and clean, ride a manual bike!!! Electric Cars aren't the answer. Not anytime soon at least.
@JBDragon:
You hit on just about all the solar myths.
If you blanketed the states in solar panels, you could run the entire planet's needs many times over. Actually, an area about 100x100 miles -- a blip in some wasteland -- could power the USA's electrical needs.
Nuclear is fine, but the current generation of reactors are abysmal. It is possible to extract many, many times the amount of energy that is actually taken from isotopes - hence the toxic waste issue (if more energy was taken the waste wouldn't be so powerful, for so long).
Yep, renewables are intermittent, which is why we need a way to store that energy. Batteries in electric cars, and home-mounted batteries can do the job. For solar-thermal, molten salt is a good way to store heat for when the sun isn't shining. Harnessing wind power in the northern jetstreams (using helicopter-like turbines) can be almost as reliable as a nuclear or fossil power plant (90%). The big-daddy of base-load power is geothermal. Think about it - you are standing on lava. Oil companies have perfected drilling to extreme depths, so there are no huge technical hurdles to overcome, just dino-juice inertia.
What else... oh, electric cars. What time would make the most sense to charge? Night.. which happens to be when power stations are scrambling to dump their power somewhere. It's not easy to spool-down/up a coal-guzzling beast that big.
The US power grid could charge a massive number of cars with zero changes if the charge was simply timed right - not like you're all going to buy EVs tomorrow...
The old "cost to make the device argument". Yes, because we all know gasoline magically appears at your local gas station with no other costs or pollution associated with it. Pay no attention to the massive refineries that had to be built and maintained. Pay no attention to the energy they use. Pay no attention to the trucks and ships that have to be built and maintained to transport oil and gasoline. Pay no attention to the emissions from these. Pay no attention to the massive offshore oil rigs that have to be built and maintained.
Pay not attention either to that crankcase full of oil that needs to be changed on a regular basis.
As to California's purportedly overtaxed power grid, even if that applied to the entire state, California isn't the entire United States, much less the world.
Keep in mind that the market isn't going to be flooded with plug-in hybrid or electric cars overnight. Simple economics of their higher pricing will see to that.
As to your final paragraph, it pisses me off when people dismiss any interim measures, and suggest walking or riding a bike as the only alternative to an internal combustion engine. I see this type of argument more frequently in articles about electric bikes. Face the reality that for the majority people, walking or biking is not a viable alternative, whereas a plug-in hybrid, full EV, or electric bike may be.
The Nickel Metal Hydride batteries in Prius Hybrid cars take vast amounts of energy to produce. This energy is not calculated in the supposed energy efficiency of the Prius.
If you want a truly energy efficient car, get a VW turbodiesel.
The Golf TD gets a true 50+ MPG without the added energy expenditure of the hybrid battery system.
@(Unverified) Now remind me what the emissions ratings for this TD car is? Yeah.
Free unlimited energy for electric cars. No brainer.
no toilet? wtf
Imagine, if instead of cars being plugged in, instead rolling onto a souped-up Power Mat?
Frankly when I saw that picture I assumed the solar panels are a) to light the ports at night and b) secondarily to play to the feelings of the crowd that buy electric cars at this time.
Not to actually charge the cars.