Cobos

DDB: Using ultracaps in your garage and then dumping the entire power from the caps into the car ultracaps should technically work fine. As you said that's one of the advantages of ultracaps over normal batteries, much faster recharge and usage time. But that avoids the whole cost issue. Batteries regardless of wether they are some variant of Li-ion, ultracaps, Rareium or whatever are expensive. That's usually a significant cost of the EV itself. So when you are home anyway you usually stay home for some time and thus you don't NEED quickcharge.
In many ways buying a cheap SECOND car like the Think often makes just as much sense as buying an extra battery.

This of course completely ignores the security risks associated with transfering this much electric power this fast.

Cobos

vfx

I would substitute "Safety" for "Security"in this sentence.

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The world loves to be deceived.

Cobos

Now that you mention it, so would I :)

Cobos

malcolm

Cost is the killer on this one.

Why pay good money for ultracaps or high discharge rate batteries and spend all night trickle charging them while the car sits in the garage with them just so that you can play Victor Frankenstein with the circuit-breaker next morning ("Give my Car life! LIFE! Mwwah! Ha! Ha! Ha!")

Alternatively why trickle charge them all day so you can do the same thing when you come home in the evening. Unless your planning to go straight out again for another 100 mile journey, there's no need. Most people need a couple of hours to turn around before they go out in the evening anyway. Plenty of time for a normal slow recharge sufficient for typical evening mileage.

And if it's a setup for a fast charging station, maybe at a hotel, you'll have to pay more for the same electricity delivered at a faster rate. Most people will think "screw this - let's check into the hotel and charge up at the slower, cheaper rate". It is in the hotel's interest to only offer slow recharging.

Equally, Fast recharge stations would much rather that you stopped for longer, had a meal, did some shopping etc and so they would also encourage slower recharging.

Could offer a Fast rate and a cheaper Slow rate

But Slow rate gives far fewer safety/litigation headaches for them to worry about.

Michael

Actually it seems as though there might be a use for having a battery backup system (utilizing ultracaps) at home. When capturing excess energy generated via solar panels, that energy could be stored in this backup system. This excess energy would be useable by either the home, should there be a power failure, or could be used to recharge a vehicle. Since you would receive a lot less for energy sold to a utility than they would charge you for the same amount of energy, if the price of the ultracaps were not too excessive, there might be a reasonable ROI.

malcolm

Oh absolutely. I have no problem with domestic electricity storage from renewables, it's the costly and dangerous high power capability for ultra fast charging EVs which strikes me as unecessary.

I admit that I even find Tesla's 3.5-4.5 hr fast charge a bit silly, since the car has to consume an extra 17kWh just to keep the battery cool.

TEG

graham

From the article:
The EEStor stuff still has the hallmarks of snake oil, but Lockheed and KP certainly lend some gravitas. I would love it if they can deliver as advertised.

jsawvel

The cityZenn is supposed to be arriving in Europe in early 2010. The road-certification process is easier there. The cityZenn will employ new battery technology by Eestor (if it ever gets here). The Zenn Car Blog

graham

fluff piece of owning a Zenn in New Jersey. The Roadster is briefly mentioned:
Jerseyans revved on electric cars - Breaking News From New Jersey - NJ.com