Ultra capacitors

[TEG]

Nissan unveils revolutionary car battery charging tech and new, highly formable ultra high tensile strength steel

...
According to a report, researchers at Japan’s Kansai University, working together with Nissan boffins, have come up with tech to speed up the charging process. Currently, lithium-ion batteries can take up to eight hours to recharge fully.
In experiments, the researchers tweaked a capacitor – by using a composite made from tungsten oxide and vanadium oxide for the capacitor’s electrode instead of the usual carbon – to allow it to hold more power. Tests with the new capacitor resulted in it being able to fully recharge within 10 minutes, while maintaining nearly the same storage capacity and voltage as lithium-ion batteries, the report says.
Apparently, the new capacitor has endured repeated charging and discharging without durabiility issues, and the researchers are now planning to go further afield, utilising different materials and structures for the device, with the aim of bringing down the charge time to three minutes or less.
The report adds that it is likely to take about a decade to commercialise the technology, but the breakthrough is expected to help cut production costs for electric cars and make them more popular for drivers in a hurry...

[Norbert]

That's significant! Expect a lot of research projects in ultra capacitors...

[VolkerP]

citing Shai Agassi of Better Place here:

"Those who tell you that we can charge an electric car in three minutes - that's a 2 MW line. I don't know if you ever held a 2 MW line. But there's a sticker on the wheel in that car that says 'step away from the car as far as possible. Take your kids with you. Stand behind the wall. If your hair is standing when you come back to the car, it's just static, don't worry.' That's not something you want to drive in."
http://youtu.be/NfGEbTcNuzA 11:20 - 11:45

He presented the BetterPlace solution to electric cars (battery swapping), with Renault / Nissan providing the cars.

[zack]

Ultra-capacitor fast-recharge centers will have to be located very close to electrical substations in urban environments. 56KWh is 3.36 million Wm (Watt minutes), so a 3 minute charge for a Tesla Roadster will require more than a million watt connection. And connector. At 1000VDC that would be more than 1100A. At 10,000VDC that would be a more manageable 110A (or so), but of course, wiring up a battery pack for 10,000VDC has it's difficulties as well.

Pretty hairy stuff. 8^D I'm excited to see the future happen.

[Doug_G]

They can use supercapacitors to solve that problem, too. Put them in the charging station. Charge them up slowly while the charging station is idle, then flash the power into the car when one shows up.

The problem is going to be transferring all that power without melting something.

[Nik]

The problem is going to be transferring all that power without melting something.

Or somebody.

[dpeilow]

liquid nitrogen cooled superconducting cable

Also useful in EV tuning...

[VolkerP]

"high temp" superconductors make the transition to superconducting behavior slightly above liquid nitrogen (77K). Superconductivity fights with electric current density, however. For every increase of 100 A/mm² you need to lower temp another 10K-ish, until you pass out at liquid helium (4K). So even superconducting cables need to be really thick and need to be cooled with helium to deliver that 1.21 GW.

[jaanton]

I've been wondering if Ultra Capacitors in conjunction with zinc-air batteries wouldn't make sense. The capacitors would handle regeneration and passing current while zinc-air might deliver continual base driving current + some to recharge the capacitors. That also may deal with the problems of power loss due to charging capacitors pretty well. I don't really know either technology, but on the surface it makes sense.

[zack]

Tesla himself would suggest electrostatic charging at this point. Apparently clouds have no problem.