JFE Engineering's quick auto charger does 50% charge in three minutes, hits parking lots in March
By Tim Stevens 
posted July 6th 2010 9:09AM
posted July 6th 2010 9:09AM
posted July 6th 2010 9:09AM
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EVO-2 ~~! :]
@Picaso4me That and no mention of what type of magical battery they charge this fast and why they are not going after the existing marks using that type of magical battery.
Even if it works the only electric vehicle sold to date with a reasonable range is the Tesla at $130k. I don't see anyone overcoming it's problems of aluminium chassis, carbon fiber body panels, and li-ion batteries any time soon.
3 minutes why charge fully :)
@jj1ggz914
Why not wait two more minutes for 70% charge. These recharge times are astounding.
@dardub נecause that's not how batteries work.
batteries charging work according to the 80-20 rule. 80% of the charge is gotten at 20% of the time and the rest 20% will take 80% of the time.
@Ziv You missread the comment, he's saying it's better to do a 5 min recharge for 70% than a 3 min charge for 50%. He's well-aware that there is a diminished return on the next 20% but it's well-worth it in his view.
...and yes, that does seem to be how these recharging stations work if you read both the article and comment correctly. Also, the 80-20 rule here, like usual, is an over-simplification.
just pull an apple and 'change the perception' so 3 minute charge = 100% charge on the gauge.. lol
An hour or two of my time is not worth $60K.
I'll be more patient.
Wonder what a smaller ~300lb scooter one would cost, as that seems more effective for short commuting trips than a big ~2000lb+ car.
@Ducman69 This is probably aimed at businesses such as gas stations and parking garages. I suppose the home charging station would be a regular slower charger.
@orbimedia additionally, ". Fast-flowing electrons: expensive business." Without a comparison for what a stations pump would cost in Japan, we have no way to compare the two prices and call this expensive. I'd guess between having underground tanks and everything, stations would have WAY more upfront costs to start up with a petrol fueling station, while this is CHEAP business (though to add one pump to a station might be cheaper, this is the way to get in the door cheapest in my guesstimation, it just SOUNDS expensive.)
Whenever you buy a large battery (I'm talking about 50+ Ahr delicious lead-acid batteries) the specs manual usual quotes the time to recharge to 90%. If you're only charging your battery to 50% or 70% then you will undoubtedly destroy the life of your battery. Unless of course there is some magical new battery technology that I'm unaware of. Maybe thats why the vehicle costs exactly one arm + leg.
@crayjay: Electric cars don't use lead-acid batteries. Some use nickel-metal-hydride while newer/higher-end models use lithium-based batteries, which don't suffer from memory effect and (afaik) can be charged for as long or short a time as you like without affecting capacity.
@crayjay
Li-ion batteries used in pretty much all modern plug-ins have no memory effect. It actually is more damaging to the battery to fully charge it. You have to keep in mind the cycle life of a battery is rated at full cycles. Meaning two 50% charges is roughly equal to one 100% charge, so a partial charge doesn't cost more life than a full charge. However, the charge rates of this kind of charger will have affect on life.
This is likely only used in rare cases, like long trips or emergencies. Slow charging should be good enough for everyday use.
@jakey correctamundo! I have some background in the battery business and this is the most accurate comment here.
there are a lot of myths surrounding batteries, someone should do an article to explain it all.
wow. when this becomes cost efficient in a few years. An electric car will be attractive!
...and still I have no interest at all in electric vehicles of any type.
@Zer0fluX I do - and it has nothing to do with the environment. Instant torque.
@Zer0fluX
How nice for you. Enjoy continuing to pay $3+ for gasoline.
@Mightydh
I'm against the tech, but it's just not "there" yet. There are still way too many additional/hidden expenses in electric vehicles. Besides, until our grids are (mostly) nuclear, I don't like electricity as an "alternative fuel". It's more like remote pollution.
@badasscat
I don't even pay $3.00 for gas, so no worries. Would rather pay a few bucks per gallon directly at the pump, or pay for the energy from a plant indirectly? There isn't much cost savings in electric vehicles. In fact, without subsidy it wouldn't be cost effective enough for manufacturers to develop.
@Mightydh
Have a non-all-electric vehicle does not mean no electric motors. It simply means a secondary power source in addition to the batteries, e.g. Chevy Volt or other hybrid vehicle.
Until we can swap our batteries in 5 minutes at the local battery exchange, many of us will avoid electric only vehicles. While the vast majority of Americans drive only a few miles a day, there are still the periodic road trips that require extended range without the hassle of renting a car, or laying over for 12 hours while your battery charges.
@Zer0fluX
Sorry, should say "I'm NOT against the tech"
@Spiny Norman What I mean is more on the lines of a Tesla type electric. I don't want a charging system like the Volt. That is extra weight that I don't need. I want the batteries to drive an electric motor. No generator of any sort.
@Zero Agreed with the transmission of power and such. I was a nuke on an aircraft carrier and love all things nuclear power. However, large scale power generation is more efficient than small motors. I think I might be the opposite of NIMBY, I want that Toshiba small scale nuclear power unit in my basement.
@Zer0fluX "In fact, without subsidy it wouldn't be cost effective enough for manufacturers to develop."
It's not cost effective to build an oil refinery for your own gas either, but somehow the laws of economic scale seem to work.
This is a chicken/egg problem and everyone that pooh-poohs it are simply late adopters, in my view. Were cell phones any good when they first came out? Were PCs cheap? Hell, do you think everyone went out and bought a Model T when they were first sold? It will take time and money to make the change.
@Mightydh
I see your point, but I believe you're in the minority. On of the biggest stumbling blocks for electric car adoption is the perception that they're only useful around town. Until the advent of hybrids, this was basically correct.
Sure, there are folks like yourself that could use an all-electric vehicle, but most consumers want the flexibility that a hybrid provides. If you can afford 2 vehicles, then having an electric vehicle can work if you have an IC vehicle as your second car.
Personally, I'd like to see the solution proposed by Better Place come to fruition: all-electric vehicles with the infrastructure in place to swap batteries throughout the country. This model basically mirrors what we have today with gas stations.
@Zer0fluX: Electric vehicles remain more environmentally efficient than internal combustion even when you take into account the fossil fuel used to generate electricity. Two reasons for this are:
1) Battery technology has orders of magnitude lower capacity compared to a petrol tank, which means you can't realistically store the same amount of energy; this isn't entirely made up for by the internal efficiencies described below, so in order to achieve a reasonable range, electric vehicles tend to be smaller and lower-weight.
2) Even if electricity in your area comes primarily from fossil fuels, say it's 20% from nuclear and renewables, that's still a 20% reduction in CO2 output.
3) Electric cars are hugely more efficient 'at the car' because electrical motors are hugely more efficient than internal combustion. This is offset by charging losses and by the fact that the same processes (burning fossil fuels to make something turn around) take place at power stations, although possibly at larger scale with greater efficiencies. Overall, according to Wikipedia, when including fossil-fuel power generation, electrical cars are more efficient than petrol (gasoline)-powered cars in this regard, but slightly less efficient than the best diesel-powered cars.
4) Electric cars usually have regenerative braking which is not present in cars using only an internal combustion engine.
So in other words, if you drive a small, lightweight, highly-efficient car (something that emits under 100g/km CO2), there probably isn't much difference between that and an electric car. However, if national power systems improve (or if you already live in an area that is powered by renewables/nuclear), the electric car will get better. Electric cars also don't increase local pollution, which is a health hazard in most major cities.
Electric cars do pose a major challenge for the electricity network; if road transportation switches to electricity on a large scale this would necessitate vast increases in low-carbon generation, plus a smart grid to efficiently transport power long distances in order to balance differences in renewable generation. However, because electric car takeup is likely to be fairly slow, in practice this probably won't make much difference to the existing needs.
50% charge in 3 minutes? That has to be at 440v. And some OMG amps. Isn't this going to destroy the innards of even a top of the line boat battery?
@Mightydh Batteries are usually a huge number of cells in a combination of parallel and serial connection. You can have a different connection network for charging and discharging, so charging time of a battery can in principle be the same as the charging time of a single cell. Of course, the charging current is I=Icell*Ncells where Icell is the cell charging current and the Ncells is the number of cells.
Of course there is one practical limitation - heat dissipation because charging is not a 100% efficient process, so some active cooling must be active during charging.
@stoffer Any MARF-mate will tell you that heat + H2 = a nice little explosion.
@Mightydh 600 Amps, probably around 500 Volts.
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20100621/183598/
@Mightydh
that assumes you have lead-acid batteries which would probably die if charged that fast. pretty sure they're using a different chemistry.
I'm wondering whether these "quick chargers" for car batteries will wear down the batteries faster... as they do to lithium batteries in the home.
It's one thing to have to replace a set of $10 AA-equivalents after 500 charges vs. 1000 (using a trickle charger), but the batteries in electric cars cost thousands of dollars to replace.
@badasscat
2000s: we need alternative fuel!
2020s: we need alternative batteries!
@whiskers
2012 : we need more time.
@whiskers
What we've always needed was an alternative power source.
@badasscat
depends on the battery. Generally, fast chargable cells have a lower energy density (up from 120 Wh/kg) compared to about 200 Wh/Kg for mobile phone cells. Batteries are rated in C (example: 1C 50 kWh battery means 50 kW maximum power, 2C 50 kWh mens 100kW maximum etc.) The fastest Cells like from toshiba are rated 12C.
Though the more a battery is charged, the more its internal resistence increase, so charging current decreases. Thats why quick charges never completely fill up the battery.
Now all we need is wireless charging and we can drive coast to coast on 0 gallons of gas.
How come this article only has a handful of comments meanwhile an article about the newest iphone cover usually has hundreds. I'm starting to think the average engadget reader isn't even old enough to drive.
@dardub
Simple. Like it or not, the iPhone is a reality.
99.99% of articles about electric vehicles are talking about crap that *may* be available one day. Of course, they've been saying the same thing for the past 30 years. The technology simply never gets here, so we grow bored and talk about other sh*t.
@Spiny Norman
The main reason modern EVs got delayed is because they got killed off after CARB cut back on their ZEV program. Also a lot of the battery tech that made these things possible was only invented in the last 20-30 years (think about when Nimh and Li-ion batteries for consumer electronics and laptops came about, it wasn't that long ago). Now with the Nissan Leaf, the Volt, I think EVs will make a pretty strong comeback.
In general, anything automotive, I don't think engadget has much interest in. That's more for autoblog.
Oh yeah, I want a Nissan eCube!
That's pretty impressive. I wonder how they manage it.
Problem is chemical batteries. When they invent capacitor based batteries, you'll be able to charge them in seconds :)
I saw this post on Crunchgear as well and the price for these units is not 60,000 but 17,000. Makes a huge difference when you think about how much gas pumps are compared to a 17,000 EV charger. Heres the article from May straight from the Mark Perry/Nissan. http://bit.ly/cRuc6N
I'm all in for electric vehicles but most of them look really horrible and/or just plain stupid. Gives us more tesla's and normal looking vehicles. If you must do something special do something like the Japanese eliica.