Fixing car and e-bike batteries saves money and resources, but challenges are holding back the industry

  • LazaroFilm
    link
    English
    4411 months ago

    Make all cars rechargeable with a single charging port. And that port should be USB-C

    • Altima NEO
      link
      fedilink
      English
      4111 months ago

      like 50 USB-C cables tied together to output enough of a charge lol

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        311 months ago

        The highest available now is 240 W, so with 50 in parallel you get 12 kW. Fast chargers go up to like 300 kW but at home 12 is good enough actually.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        111 months ago

        I’ve been surprised by USB-C. I recently bought a Xiaomi phone and it takes like 10 minutes to charge with the charger that comes with the phone (and it still works with the other ones). It’s 120 watts

        At that rate it’d still take 12 hours to charge a 1440 watt hour battery, which isn’t the hour or two that people are used to with superchargers these days, but actually surprisingly servicable.

        • @willis936
          link
          English
          1611 months ago

          That’s 50x smaller than an EV battery. Being able to drive once every two months doesn’t seem practical.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          1011 months ago

          Where did you pull that 1440Wh number from? The battery in my plug-in hybrid is 20kWh, and that’s still small compared to a full EV.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            411 months ago

            Ah shit, I googled the number but it looks like I got the number for a battery in an internal combustion engine car, apologies. I’m an electronics person, not a car person

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              111 months ago

              Understandable. Just for the sake of comparison to a smartphone 120W fast charger, level 1 EV chargers (which can still take days to fully charge a completely drained EV) will generally deliver between 1000 and 1500W. Level 2 (the fastest you’ll typically see installed in people’s homes) range from about 7kW to 19kW. Level 3 fast chargers typically operate from about 60 to 250kW and unlike level 1 and 2 which deliver AC to the car to be handled by the vehicles internal rectifier/charger, level 3 delivers DC.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          2
          edit-2
          11 months ago

          1.44kWh Is roughly 7-10km of driving, depending on the car and weather. In 12h that’s an absolutely useless amount of power for anything other than small e-scooters and short-range e-bikes.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      7
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      Can’t wait for all power cables to just be USB-C. I dream for the day where I can charge my phone with the same plug my induction stove uses.

    • LazaroFilm
      link
      English
      111 months ago

      If USB-C isn’t powerful enough, I’ll settle for a Lightning connector.

      • @_chris
        link
        English
        4
        edit-2
        11 months ago

        The one in / from back to the future should be sufficient.