Epyon, a small Dutch startup, is showing the big boys how it's done with its recently unveiled fast-charging station for
electric vehicles. Billed as Europe's first commercially available charger of its kind, this unit will recharge anything up to a nine-seater taxi van within 30 minutes, thanks to its 50 kilowatts of power capacity. It's now installed alongside more conventional petrol and diesel refilling points in a fueling station over in Leeuwarden. That's the capital city of Friesland, a Dutch province that has set itself the ambitious goal of having 100,000 EVs on its roads by 2015. That aim is
shared by the wider European Union as well, which yesterday agreed on defining a common electric recharging standard, whose universality might attract skeptical consumers and more cautious investors into the field. They've set themselves a deadline of "mid-2011," though the broad outlines and new incentives for buying greener cars are likely to appear by the end of this year.
posted May 26th 2010 4:47AM
I'll miss the grunt of my 3 litre 8 cylinder 300HP car... :(
@loocas
i think you'll grow to love 100% torque throughout the whole rpm range
I like the idea I can stalk someone walking on the sidewalk with my electric car because it makes no noise.
@weirdo557 notice - in one gear :D
@Zeak
because fully electric vehicles have gears?
@paegus They can have one or more or none.
The pollution-free aspect of EV's is a myth. It's really just "pollution-elsewhere" because the electric supplying those chargers comes from somewhere, namely the power plants billowing out huge plumes. This is all a very nice sleight of hand con that makes people feel good for a minute. Don't believe the hype.
Sincerely,
-Your friends at BP.
p.s. That oil spill they say is going on right now? Never. happened.
Fuck yeah, Gundam Wing!!!
Epyon ... you can't be a winner.
Gundam-wise this is a poor choice of name for product.
@Dummy00001 Tallgeese would have been so much better.
@Dummy00001 Yeah, because a hook ended charger carrying extremely high voltage name Deathscythe works so much better.
@KAL326 heavy arms... ftw.
I just hope EV´s will continue to only have a 25% tax here in Denmark and not the usual 225%, then I´ll get a EV, could be nice to get the equivalent than a small golf for less than 60000usd :)
@Techtrino
For your sake, I hope so too.
wack! in the hood nobody driving these.... be a man buy yo self a darn mustang or a hummer!!!
Nice, the Dutch leading the way!
@JFH We try ;)
@JFH Go Nederland!
Why is an Epyon on the... Oh, I get it.
Very clever.
Very sleek and efficient. I'm liking the future.
Get that down to 3 minutes and we'll start talking. Sitting around in a petrol station for half and hour everyday...no thanks.
@Rod You learn to fix it around your day, so for example it goes there and you go for lunch.
The practicalities of charging more than a few cars at once is likely to rule this kind of tech out long term.
Seems to me the EU have rushed to make a standard to appear green but actually the practicalities have not been thought out. It's exactly the same as the bio-fuels has from 2008/9.
We need energy dense fuel. Traditional b8terz are never going to be the answer. Now... use the electricity to split water into Oxygen and Hydrogen so the car can refuel fully in less than a minute and you're onto a winner.
@cashclientel If electrolysis was energy efficient, it would be here for this application by now, dont you think?
@Bahumbug Which is exactly why we need fusion power dammit.
Then it wouldn't matter that it was energy inefficient and we could drive round in Hydrogen powered cars
@coley501 This. It's a sad fact that the US is going to be closing one of our better power plants soon. Give me a couple dozen nuclear power plants across the country, please.
@Rod
How does 0-50% of the charge in under 3 minutes?
http://green.autoblog.com/2010/05/07/new-battery-charger-is-supposedly-really-fast-from-0-to-50-per/
The tech is there, all it takes is thinking out of the box. By The Way, electric charging stations should and will be placed in restaurants, cafes, shopping centers, professional plazas, etc. The idea is that you will be able to plug wherever you go, and 30 minutes is more than adequate for this scenario.
+1 for gundam wing reference lol
i hope to use this on my mobile
*plays some white reflection*
Those electric cars will came with a cd containing v6 v8 v10 v12 and 4inline vtec engine noises? And for turbo entusiasts put a sound track with blow of valve noise to.
I am happy that the EU is standardizing the charging stations, but why not standardize the BATTERIES for the different size of car, then I can pull in and get a charged battery, and off I go very quickly.
That way I am not spending 30 minutes at the station, and have to plan for it.
Sorry, trying to bring logic into it, I know.
Wow a gundam crossover....how nice.
What is that red thing?
Am I the only one who thinks putting a 50 kilowatt device right next to a gas pump might not be the best idea?
You just made my day Engadget, Epyon has always been my favorite Gundam.
@Prevacator Yea it was pretty awesome i hafta admit, but it was unfortunately only in like 4 episodes. I gotta go with a toss up between Tallgeese III and Deathscythe Hell Custom as my favorite.
"50 kilowatts of power capacity." Either the measurement unit or the designation is wrong. Wrang! I tell you.
@kingu 50kW is not a measure of capacity, 50kW/h on the other hand... W is a measure of effect. I think thats what you meant to write.
lol Epyon
Eh, looks like they were a month late to claim the "First" prize
Dublin unveils first charging points in national network
Sorry, ill try again http://www.energyefficiencynews.com/i/2964/
Hopefully these make it over to the states soon. I've seen some Tesla's rolling around here in Silicon Valley, but I bet I'd be seeing a lot more if they could charge those bad boys a bit faster.
Over a year ago, I made a comment regarding the standard GM connector being built to a (in my opinion limited) spec of 240 Volt, 70 Amp. (This comes out to 16.8 KW.) See:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/21/standardized-ev-plug-could-be-adopted-within-months-says-gm/
Obviously GM (and all of the manufacturers that agreed to the standard) arn't worried about making their electric cars able to change this fast.
Now, 10 - 20 years from now when battery technology has advanced and can handle this sort of current, the connector will need to be replaced and we'll have to have a transition between these two connectors, and we'll have a huge disaster with charging stations requiring two different connectors and compatibility issues. All because GM didn't want to put parts in the connector that handled more current.
I'm not even talking about the cabling or the electronics in the car, that's what I would call a vehicle specific thing.