真乄科技業的頂尖投資團隊

時間太長電動汽車充電。收取特斯拉型號S只是中途需要五個小時，在一個典型的家庭或公共充電站。但在其努力，使電動車更實用，特斯拉汽車公司正在迅速減少充電時間。去年9月，它推出了一個網絡的“增壓”站專為它的S型和未來的電動汽車，一半在30分鐘內為電池充電。在5月，它宣布了一項削減，時間以20分鐘的升級。現在特斯拉的首席技術官，JB特勞貝爾，說，該公司最終可以減少電池完全充電所需要的時間只有五分鐘或更長的時間比需要填寫一個煤氣罐。

特勞貝爾是不是指電池交換技術特斯拉近日亮相（見“ 為什麼特斯拉認為它可以使電池交換工作 “）。該系統不快速充電電池。它只是需要耗盡的電池，完全充電的取代它。他在談論什麼可能是一個更有吸引力的選擇驅動程序：在您的汽車電池充電，而你等待。

“這不是發生在從現在起一年。這將是很難的。但我認為我們可以踏踏實實地5至10分鐘，“特勞貝爾接受記者採訪時說，在麻省理工學院技術評論。他指出，當前的增壓器，提供120千瓦的電力，“似乎很瘋狂，甚至10年前。”傳統的公共充電站提供以及10千瓦下。

特斯拉競爭增壓技術更是遙遙領先。例如，對於最流行的快速充電技術是基於日本Chademo標準，使50萬千瓦的充電。即使SAE國際品牌新的快速充電標準，這是10月最後定稿，並正在通過主要汽車製造商如通用汽車，最高為100萬千瓦。

特斯拉推技術如此積極的原因之一是它的電池組，其競爭對手的電動車電池的三倍以上的能量存儲。因此，他們需要更大功率快速充電，Arindam Maitra撰文說，電力科學研究院高級項目經理。

斯塔伊貝說，特斯拉已經能夠迅速提高充電，因為它設計和建造，包括充電器，電子監控電池組，電池的冷卻系統的關鍵部件本身。他們都優化，協同工作，興建了可容納許多不同型號的電動汽車系統的方式，是不容易的。

如果一輛電動車直接插到牆上的插座，車載充電器，AC電源從牆上，把它轉換為直流，調節功率傳送到電池。快速充電或增壓繞過板載充電器;車輛外部的AC到DC轉換發生。

快速充電的一大挑戰是提供電源的電池非常迅速，可以導致其過熱。為了避免損壞電池，外面的充電器需要溝通電子監控電池的狀態，包括電壓和溫度，並迅速調整相應的收費標準。“為了做那種充電，一切的設計和完美的同步工作，”特勞貝爾說。

實現5分鐘收費，不僅需要進一步完善收費系統，也改善與電網的接口。因為它是，只有一些地方對電網可以處理120千瓦充電。繪製大量的電力從電網也導致需求的公用事業收費，增加了系統的成本。

但特勞貝爾說，特斯拉計劃來解決這些問題，通過增壓站裝備有太陽能電池板和電池。

存儲太陽能電池在充電站也可以幫助電網運營商（見“ 風力發電 ​​機組，包括電池，可以保持電源穩定 “）。他們可以提供實用程序的方式，對電網的波動適中，東西是變得越來越重要，因為更多的權力來源，如太陽能和風能間歇，被添加。特斯拉計劃測試這種系統很快就在加州。它可以收取公用事業服務，這，特勞貝爾說，可能幫助抵消成本的站。

儘管這些快速充電的突破將是有益的，只在特斯拉的汽車，他們仍然可能是重要的，擴大電動車市場。特斯拉計劃引進汽車在未來幾年在30,000元至35,000範圍。

Electric vehicles take too long to recharge. To charge a Tesla Model S just halfway takes five hours at a typical home or public charging station. But in its effort to make electric vehicles more practical, Tesla Motors is quickly reducing the charging times. Last September, it unveiled a network of “supercharging” stations—designed exclusively for its Model S and future electric vehicles—that could charge a battery halfway in 30 minutes. In May, it announced an upgrade that cut that time to 20 minutes. Now Tesla’s chief technology officer, JB Straubel, says the company eventually could cut the time it takes to fully charge the battery to just five minutes—or not much longer than it takes to fill a gas tank.

Straubel isn’t referring to the battery swap technology Tesla recently unveiled (see “Why Tesla Thinks It Can Make Battery Swapping Work”). That system doesn’t charge batteries quickly. It simply takes out a depleted battery and replaces it with a fully charged one. He’s talking about what might be a more appealing option for drivers: recharging the battery in your car while you wait.

“It’s not going to happen in a year from now. It’s going to be hard. But I think we can get down to five to 10 minutes,” Straubel said in an interview with MIT Technology Review. He noted that the current superchargers, which deliver 120 kilowatts of electricity, “seemed pretty crazy even 10 years ago.” Conventional public charging stations deliver well under 10 kilowatts.

Tesla is far ahead of its competition with its supercharging technology. For example, the most popular fast-charging technology today is based on the Japanese Chademo standard, which enables 50-kilowatt charging. Even SAE International’s brand-new fast-charging standard, which was finalized in October and is being adopted by major automakers such as GM, tops out at 100 kilowatts.

One reason Tesla has pushed the technology so aggressively is that its battery packs store more than three times the energy of its competitors’ electric-car batteries. As a result, they require more power to charge quickly, says Arindam Maitra, a senior project manager at the Electric Power Research Institute.

Straubel says Tesla has been able to rapidly improve charging because it designs and builds all of the key components itself, including the chargers, the electronics for monitoring the battery pack, and a cooling system for the battery. They’re all optimized to work together in a way that’s not easy for systems built to accommodate many different models of electric vehicles.

If an electric car is plugged directly into a wall socket, on-board chargers take AC power from the wall, convert it to DC, and regulate the power delivered to the battery. Fast charging or supercharging bypasses the onboard charger; the AC-to-DC conversion happens outside the vehicle.

One challenge of fast charging is that delivering power to a battery very rapidly can cause it to overheat. To avoid damaging the battery, the outside charger needs to communicate with the electronics that monitor the state of the batteries, including their voltage and temperature, and quickly adjust charging rates accordingly. “To do that kind of charging, everything has to be designed and working in perfect synchrony,” Straubel says.

Achieving five-minute charges will require not only further improving the charging system, but also improving the interface with the electrical grid. As it is, only some places on the grid can handle 120-kilowatt charging. Drawing large amounts of power from the grid also incurs demand charges from the utility, increasing the cost of the system.

But Straubel says that Tesla plans to get around these problems by equipping supercharging stations with solar panels and batteries.

Storing solar power in batteries in the charging station could also be helpful to operators of the power grid (see “Wind Turbines, Battery Included, Can Keep Power Supplies Stable”). They could provide utilities a way to moderate fluctuations on the grid, something that’s becoming more important as more intermittent sources of power, such as solar and wind, are added. Tesla plans to test such a system soon in California. It could charge utilities for this service, which, Straubel says, could help offset the cost of the stations.

Even though these fast-charging breakthroughs would be useful only on Tesla’s cars, they still could be important for expanding the EV market. Tesla plans to introduce cars in the $30,000 to $35,000 range in the next few years.

資料來源:MIT