WA to turn I-5 into electric highway
Gov. Gregoire announces plan to launch nations first electric highway.
Washington landed a $1.3M Federal Recovery Act grant to install fast charging stations at regular intervals along I-5 between Canada and Oregon. This is part of a $230M government initiative to install 15,000 fast charging stations nationwide. Such a plan could significantly improve the utility of freeway capable EVs like the Pulse, which are otherwise only useful for in-city errands and commuting.
Does anyone know if there are similar initiatives to electrify Oregon's stretch of I-5?
There is a standard charging system, a world wide ISO standard if I don't remember it all wrong.
Ill allow you to charge your car with 110V, 8A-16A (takes 20-25 hours), a 40 A, 220V household station (4-8 hours) or a 60 A 220V industrial station (2-3 hours). All times are for a typical EV with a range of 100 miles. Numbers seems fairly consistent over the board (Nissan, BMW, Ford). These are the different charging stations that you would install at home or at a company fleet station.
So how to do "fast charging" on a highway station? Where batteries needs to be charged in 10 minutes or less to be attractive? The easiest solution would be to have a standard battery pack and just replace you battery pack with a fully charged one. But due to lack of standard on that side, this won't happen.
So assuming that you need to charge 240Ah in 10 minutes, that requires 1,440 A. Is there any battery pack that can that that current today? I have not seen any. Maybe 400A without overheating. So that leaves a charging time of about 40 minutes. Is this attractive? If you want to stop for a lunch or snack while the car is charging. But that gets a bit boring for a long drive. Stopping every 100 miles for a lunch brake. But then again, no-one is talking about having a Pulse (or any other EV) for cross-country trips. It will be for the guy who forgot to charge the car overnight or who had to take an additional detour for work.
But that then looks like a no-go for charging stations along the highways from a logistic standpoint. Will that small amount of cars needing charging be able to carry the cost of the charging stations? Even if the station is built with federal money?
Over a year later, a similar plan for Oregon's stretch of I-5! AeroVironment will be the supplier.
http://green.autoblog.com/2011/06/03/aerovironment-to-install-quick-char...
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California has 605 working charging stations right now. more to come with government grant money. Does anyone know if they (somebody) is working on a standard charging plug?