Charging an EV faster than filling a gas guzzler? Surely not!?

The ability to charge an electric vehicle in just a couple of minutes is the 'game changer' that car makers and car drivers are all waiting for. Batteries will always take time to charge up, but capacitors can store charge instantly. The challenge is creating one with enough energy density to make a real difference. Now a team in the USA has taken a very big step towards that goal.

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[jeroenachten]

I work in pv/ battery industry in Belgium and we recently met a startup called ForE which created a hybrid super capacitor that is already commercialised as an ESS for home storage. Impressive specs : charging at 6C speed, 50k cycles with more than 80 % of energy. Dod of 100 %. Weight was about 70kg per 5kwh unit. They use lithium as the hybrid material. I can send you a mail with all their info, would be nice to cover !

[celestinarogers]

Thanks for summarising this paper! Very interesting!

[louisjov]

It's funny that so many people focus on fast charging, not that it's not important, it certainly is, but imo the proliferation of level 2 destination chargers is far more important.

Your car is parked most of the time, and if there are low speed, and thus low installation cost, chargers pretty much everywhere, the necessity of fast charging begins to only exit for road trips, and niche travel situations

[freeheeler]

Hey Dave, American here, binding on YouTube science and engineering channels just because I happen to be an American at this particularly …. point and time.

Thanks for your kind, calm rationality! Your show today was likely a therapy session for many of us Yanks!

[pandakees]

Thank you so much Dave, for chewing all this highly interesting, yet incredibly complicated data into bits that I can actually swallow.

[mrstock]

Interesting... Thanks Dave! [Electrical Engineer here...] But i don't really see how a buffer-capacitor bank would help with fast-charging an EV. To have this capability, one would need a capacitor-bank with, say, 80% the capacity of the EV's battery. Given the much lower energy-density of capacitors, even supercapacitors, that would be a capacitor-bank considerably larger than the car itself. 🤔
The other problem with fast-charging EVs, though, not addressed in this video, the grid-load of the charging-stations, is where _(large)_ capacitor-banks could prove to be useful. To charge a 60kWh battery (that's a _small_ EV...) in one hour, one needs to supply 60kW of power, for an hour. That's already 4 to 6 times as much power as an average European home draws in wintertime... To charge the same battery faster, say in 6 minutes, you'd need to supply 600kW. That's really an obscene amount of power. Not many places exist where the grid can provide such amounts of power. But... A capacitor-bank based fast-charger could charge itself _slowly_ from the grid, say with 50kW - 60kW, and then when an EV is connected, it could dump all that stored energy into the EV's battery in minutes (provided the battery can handle that, of course) and you're off. The brawback/compromise is that the charging-point would then need an hour or two to recharge itself before another EV can be fully charged.

[jimcolleran]

Just a general comment. Going from lab results to cost-efficient manufacturing is a long difficult road that very few inventions survive. I wouldn't hold my breath on this one either.

[CJ-mxij]

I love the use of your orange lamps on set, it's so very novel and quite unique!

[carlbrenninkmeijer]

Good news, presented so well, I only knew about electrolytic capacitors and supercapacitors. Also thanks to the team !!!

[Kevin_Street]

Thank you for another wonderful video! You explained this new kind of capacitor very well.

[veganislandradio]

Thanx one again Dave. When it comes to helping me stay on top of the arguments of all the electric nay sayers you are an absolute star... 🌟

[greggrant]

Some major problems with this supercapacitor speculation for EVs:

1) On charging, the supercap buffer would quickly fill up and then you'd be limited to the rate at which the battery can charge on its own. The supercap might actually end up slowing the overall charging time for a given amount of range, if space required for the supercap reduces space available for the battery.

2) For regen or acceleration for normal stops and go's, the battery can absorb much higher rates for say 5-8 seconds than it can absorb or output sustained for the say 15-20 minutes to descend or climb a 7%/20-mile mountain grade.

Basically, when you consider the tradeoffs in the use of available space and cost of the supercap vs battery for the short stops/accels and longer hill climbs/declines, plus the incremental cost and space of the power electronics to handle higher currents / power, the low energy density of the supercap makes it unattractive for practically all EV or hybrid vehicle applications.

[Julian_Wang-pai]

It's really encouraging that these niche developments in material science and other sectors are occurring ever more frequently. They just might discover the magick-wand that will save our collective rear end. And thanks for helping keep us so well informed Dave 👍🙂

[kevinlubbe]

Always informative...and excellently presented

[fixeroftheinternet]

Excellent video as usual Dave. Very informativ piece on an extremely important piece of research that nibody else seems to have picked ip. Well.done!

[GroovyVideo]

caps to store regen then import into battery or for motor for acceleration will be used

[SkepticalCaveman]

Suoer caoacitors would be great not only for battery health during fast charging, but even more so for regen braking. Regenerating more electricity while braking extends range quite a bit while driving in cities.

[Kapalek]

With such high power, the copper tapes that these new compositions will be deposited on inside the capacitor might be heating up a lot, also regen breaking is already quite efficient however these caps could eliminate all regen losses due to capacitors charge discharge cycles(hybrid cars already have a massive capacitor inside their inverters for regen braking...) . These caps might just be a very good option for standard electronic devices as well so this is generally a very interesting news. Cheers!

[philrabe]

5:15... Hello- I was listening to you as I typed something elsewhere, heard this and I think my ears glazed over.

[bellshooter]

Yes, an interesting development, but there is a bit of a flaw here. The Caps/Supercaps/Ultracaps are really good at short term charge rates but pretty poor at energy/mass, this means that a hybrid battery system with a small Cap/SC/UC is great as a brake/acceleration buffer but pretty useless at battery charging as you still have to transfer the energy into the primary storage battery, and that is dictated by the primary battery capability.
We have used them in the past for short duration use on tram systems that need to cross short distances between overhead lines, such as conservation areas in cities.