Electric car w/ 20kW inductive charging (no cables! you park over it!)

[Larry Chanin]

Some will definitely choose convenience. There was a celebrity, do not remember who, but an old guy. He got Volt and his complaint was that he do not like daily routine of plugging it in. Or, another example, I read it on this forum, TMC, so a lady had corporate Volt, gas also paid by a company. She never plugged her Volt in. I doubt she was trying to save couple buck on electricity bill, but she did care about her convenience. And there are rumors of fleet Volts that were rarely plugged. Someone around here even suggested that such Volts could be a good deal because battery was barely used.

Yes, some people will do anything even if its irrational. These Volt stories are fascinating because rather than spend a few seconds to plug in at home, walk away go about your buisness and have their cars fully charged in the morning, these folks would rather drive out of their way to a gasoline station and hang around for 10 minutes or more wasting time and money for a more expensive, environmentally harmful fuel. :biggrin:

Larry

 

[green1]

Yes, some people will do anything even if its irrational. These Volt stories are fascinating because rather than spend a few seconds to plug in at home, walk away go about your buisness and have their cars fully charged in the morning, these folks would rather drive out of their way to a gasoline station and hang around for 10 minutes or more wasting time and money for a more expensive, environmentally harmful fuel. :biggrin:

Larry

Nobody uses gas instead of electricity in a volt because it's cheaper or more convenient, they use it because it's familiar. To them this is how cars work, how they've always worked, and how they always will work. (see these same people searching for fax machines, and insisting on using letters instead of email...)

 

[Larry Chanin]

Nobody uses gas instead of electricity in a volt because it's cheaper or more convenient, they use it because it's familiar. To them this is how cars work, how they've always worked, and how they always will work. (see these same people searching for fax machines, and insisting on using letters instead of email...)

Yep, but they must have had a major lapse in their "it's familiar" thinking when they bought the Volt in the first place. :wink:

Larry

 

[green1]

Yep, but they must have had a major lapse in their "it's familiar" thinking when the bought the Volt in the first place. :wink:
Larry

The example given (If I didn't misinterpret) was of a company car where the person driving it probably wasn't the one who chose it.

 

[Larry Chanin]

Yes, some people will do anything even if its irrational. These Volt stories are fascinating because rather than spend a few seconds to plug in at home, walk away go about your buisness and have their cars fully charged in the morning, these folks would rather drive out of their way to a gasoline station and hang around for 10 minutes or more wasting time and money for a more expensive, environmentally harmful fuel. :biggrin:

Larry

Nobody uses gas instead of electricity in a volt because it's cheaper or more convenient, they use it because it's familiar. To them this is how cars work, how they've always worked, and how they always will work. (see these same people searching for fax machines, and insisting on using letters instead of email...)

Yep, but they must have had a major lapse in their "it's familiar" thinking when they bought the Volt in the first place. :wink:

Larry

The example given (If I didn't misinterpret) was of a company car where the person driving it probably wasn't the one who chose it.

The example offered that I thought was particularly irrational was:

There was a celebrity, do not remember who, but an old guy. He got Volt and his complaint was that he do not like daily routine of plugging it in.

Larry

 

[green1]

That was someone who "Didn't like plugging it in", not someone who didn't, the next sentence was:

Or, another example, I read it on this forum, TMC, so a lady had corporate Volt, gas also paid by a company. She never plugged her Volt in.

About someone who didn't plug in, that's the one I was referring to.

Not liking to plug in is perfectly fair, I don't like getting up in the morning, but I don't think there's a superior way to live my life than getting out of bed.

 

[Doug_G]

PaddlAbout 10 seconds needed to plug in .. let's see: one needs to go to cable holder and reach for connector, unfold the cable, open charging port, plug in and check everything is fine.
In the morning one needs to repeat the process in reverse - go to charging port, unplug, take care of cable, close the port.

I've timed myself. It takes me 3 seconds to plug in the Model S. The plug is hanging on the wall right beside the charge port. As i walk by I grab it, push the button, pivot and push it into place. Click green light done. Unplugging is just as fast.

It takes 10+ seconds to plug in the Roadster, but I'd still rather do that every day than pump gas just once in January.

 

[Zzzz...]

Here is the guy asking for Tesla to QUOTE:"automate the power charging cap to close after power cord is removed". That not even a half measure to make plug in process a bit more bearable

. Well, if there would be an wireless option, I think many will opt for it. And then it popularity will spread through word of mouse.

Tesla Model S Owners Place Ad In Newspaper - CEO Elon Musk Repsonds

 

[Great Dane]

You Guys have no idea what it involves!!!!
It will add a lot of weight to the car
you have to have a big coil (lots of expensive copper) on board underneath the car and has to be very close to the coil in the ground. and the heat loss is huge. lets cook our garages
19 kilowatt transformer for 80 amp chargers 9.6 kilowatt for the 40 amp
go feel the transformer of a laptop power supply it gets pretty hot, and that is only 65 watt
And forget about super charger heat and losses
Now go plug in your cars!

agree with Doug_G to save 3 seconds in and 3 seconds out
And I think it is one of the coolest things about the car remotely opening the charge port

 

[WarpedOne]

Indeed.
I don't understand why some so strongly oppose OPTIONAL wireless charging. It would probably cost twice as much as supercharger access.
Also I don't understand why PluglessPower targets Leafs and Volts and ignores Tesla.

Tesla buyers have more money then Leaf and Volt buyers. Or they would all be Tesla buyers ...

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Indeed.
I don't understand why some so strongly oppose OPTIONAL wireless charging. It would probably cost twice as much as supercharger access.
Also I don't understand why PluglessPower targets Leafs and Volts and ignores Tesla.

Tesla buyers have more money then Leaf and Volt buyers. Or they would all be Tesla buyers ...

Tesla owners pay their butlers to plug their cars in.

More seriously ...

Tech Specs - Plugless Power

Charging Power Output
3.3 kW continuous

Not. Going. To. Happen. (In. A. Way. That. Interests. Tesla. Owners.)

JB Straubel suggested that it should be possible up to 10kW, which will be enough for most owners' home charging needs.

In my opinion, self-parking cars would come first, with their ability to hit a target precisely minimizing wireless charging losses, increasing the benefit of EV parking. The key challenges will first be system cost and then agreeing an industry standard for placement distance from front or rear. (With full self-park, it won't really matter whether the car has to go in backwards or forwards.)

 

[MartinAustin]

The Model S's wired charger is 92% efficient (Tesla's number). That means for every 85kWh you put into the battery, you had to pay for 92.3kWh and the rest is lost as heat. (I suppose you can warm yourself with it if the weather is cold)

If inductive charging is 20% inefficient, or 80% efficient, that means you pay for 106.25kWh every time you put 85kWh into the battery. Sure that is quite a bit more.

But if the electricity comes from solar panels, who cares? There is a great deal more energy coming down from the sun every day than we can use.
Tesla Motors on Twitter: Earths ultimate recoverable resource of oil equals what the Sun supplies to Earth in 1.5 days. http://t.co/frNUBNVwMF

If it isn't coming from solar panels, and is still causing carbon to be put into the atmosphere, well, at least electric cars generate a great deal less carbon than combustion cars - three to five times less.

The convenience of parking over a charging system and not having to get out of your car while it charges (should you wish) is pretty darn handy and could make electric cars more compelling to the masses. If it helps to sell millions more battery-electric cars, perhaps the saving in carbon emissions would be a good exchange for the inefficient charging system.

 

[siai47]

We don't need another "charging standard". I've lived with inductive chargers in the past and I didn't think much of them. They add complexity and weight to the vehicle. The fixed part of the system (think of it as your EVSE) is large, heavy and expensive to purchase. It is impossible to be carried with you like your current EVSE unless you have as hand cart and are strong enough to lift it into your vehicle. GM came up with the bright idea of the Magnacharger to eliminate having to handle a powered cable to plug in your vehicle. The fixed part of the system converted 240 AC to high frequency AC which supplied energy to a transformer in the "paddle". The paddle was inserted into a port in the vehicle which had the other half of the transformer inside. Then vehicle mounted electronics converted the high frequency AC to DC for battery charging. This standard changed several times during it's short life. GM changed from large paddles to smaller paddles which required an adapter to use the Magnacharger in older vehicles. This also made the large paddle Magnachargers obsolete as the paddle wouldn't fit into the smaller new style port. Enter Toyota with it's RAV4-EV that originally was designed for conductive (EVSE style) charging. The RAV4's that came to this country used the Magnacharger (wouldn't want to offend the emerging GM standard). However, Toyota didn't like the IR signaling used for communication with the charger and went with a more reliable RF signal for communication. That meant that GM chargers wouldn't work on the Toyota---however Toyota provided both signaling circuits, IR and RF in their TAL charger so that it would work with GM vehicles. The use of the paddle inductive charger still required inserting a "cord" into the vehicle similar to what you do today with the EVSE. In either system, the operator is protected from electric shock by the interface that won't allow power to flow if things are not correct. The inductive RAV4's suffered from a small loss in efficiency v.s. the conductive charged cars. Also in the case of the RAV4, the inductive charger caused some of the most common problems with the vehicle when a capacitor failed in the system on many cars. Those problem parts didn't exist in the conductive cars. In the case of the GM cars, there were fires caused due to overheating of the charge port that required a recall to correct.


So, to be on topic. I guess if you want another standard, higher weight, lower efficiency, lower reliability and higher unit cost fixed system just to save the trouble of plugging in your vehicle to a "standardized" system then go for it. Just let me keep the conductive system we have. The EVSE's that use the J1772 standard and the Tesla high powered connector do the job just fine.

 

[Doug_G]

The Model S's wired charger is 92% efficient (Tesla's number). That means for every 85kWh you put into the battery, you had to pay for 92.3kWh and the rest is lost as heat. (I suppose you can warm yourself with it if the weather is cold)

If inductive charging is 20% inefficient, or 80% efficient, that means you pay for 106.25kWh every time you put 85kWh into the battery. Sure that is quite a bit more.

Most likely that 80% efficiency would be on top of the current 92%, for a total efficiency of 74%.

But if the electricity comes from solar panels, who cares? There is a great deal more energy coming down from the sun every day than we can use.

That is ignoring the added capital cost of the extra solar panels and inverters, the cost of maintaining them, the physical area required to hold them, and the environmental impact of building them. Solar energy isn't completely free - nothing is.

 

[Zzzz...]

Ok, here is commercial product that QUOTE: "achieve record-high efficiencies of 95%, effectively reducing the heat load". Scaling up to automotive currents should only help efficiency. It is probably Ok to use 10% number, but 20% loss is too unrealistic to assume.

And wireless charger do not have to be under the car, check this design: Should electric cars charge through their nose?
Love the QUOTE: "The writing is on the wall for corded electric vehicle charging: within the foreseeable future it will be phased out in favor of wireless technology.":biggrin:

- - - Updated - - -

But more importantly read this one: "is able to transmit three kilowatts at an overall efficiency of 95 percent"

 

[ElSupreme]

Ok, here is commercial product that QUOTE: "achieve record-high efficiencies of 95%, effectively reducing the heat load". Scaling up to automotive currents should only help efficiency. It is probably Ok to use 10% number, but 20% loss is too unrealistic to assume.

But efficiency drops off significantly and exponentially with distance. The device you are showing is basically a contact (with a plastic case, and film) between the two loops. A vehicle will never get closer than about 4-5" from an inductive loop in the ground. Getting 80% efficiency is probably good.

If you built a car-proof mound of an inductive charger you might get ~2" away. Still a long way from the 1-2mm that the device you are showing is getting.

And as for the nose mount charger. Won't be high powered. More power -> bigger inductive loops.

 

[liuping]

I've timed myself. It takes me 3 seconds to plug in the Model S. The plug is hanging on the wall right beside the charge port. As i walk by I grab it, push the button, pivot and push it into place. Click green light done. Unplugging is just as fast.

It takes 10+ seconds to plug in the Roadster, but I'd still rather do that every day than pump gas just once in January.

I agree. I really do not understand people who say it's a hassle to plug in. I've seen it listed more than once as one of the reasons EVs will not "catch on".

It takes just seconds to plug in and even less to unplug it. There is no need to wind/unwind cord like a hose every time. One loop over a hanger is all it takes to keep it from laying on the floor.

How can they really think it's more convenient to: drive to a gas station, waiting in line, swiping a credit card, unscrewing the cars gas cap, lift the gas hose from the pump, select the gas type, insert the gas hose in the car, waiting for the gas to pump, returning the hose to the pump, and wait for a receipt to print?

 

[KenN]

Or, another example, I read it on this forum, TMC, so a lady had corporate Volt, gas also paid by a company. She never plugged her Volt in. I doubt she was trying to save couple buck on electricity bill, but she did care about her convenience. And there are rumors of fleet Volts that were rarely plugged.

Yes, some people will do anything even if its irrational. These Volt stories are fascinating because rather than spend a few seconds to plug in at home, walk away go about your buisness and have their cars fully charged in the morning, these folks would rather drive out of their way to a gasoline station and hang around for 10 minutes or more wasting time and money for a more expensive, environmentally harmful fuel. :biggrin:

Larry

I think that, if you do some digging, you'll find that in those "corporate" Volt stories, the choice NOT to charge is based on money, and not convenience. The corps that give these out as fleet cars stick with their historical patterns - they pay for the gas that the driver uses. But without examining their corporate policies, they don't update the way "fuel" is compensated. So as an employee, would you use free gas or charge the company car at home on your own dime?

 

[Larry Chanin]

I think that, if you do some digging, you'll find that in those "corporate" Volt stories, the choice NOT to charge is based on money, and not convenience. The corps that give these out as fleet cars stick with their historical patterns - they pay for the gas that the driver uses. But without examining their corporate policies, they don't update the way "fuel" is compensated. So as an employee, would you use free gas or charge the company car at home on your own dime?

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the background.

I understand why some people would rationally use "free" gas. However, if your question is directed at me, for the perk of driving an "electric" company car, yes I would definitely charge it at home on my dime and if possible I would never use the company's free gas. Perhaps that's irrational on my part, but just call be crazy. :wink:

Larry

 

[WarpedOne]

>> Charging Power Output: 3.3 kW continuous

Not. Going. To. Happen. (In. A. Way. That. Interests. Tesla. Owners.)

Maybe. Say it manages to push 2kW into the car.
If Tesla finally decides there is no need to run cooling pumps that eat ~1kW during charging at low enough power all of those 2kW will go into the battery. Over 10h it would fill up ~1/4 of total range i.e. 65miles.
Not enough? Use two and get 130miles of nonplug range over night.

Still not enough, well plug it in.