MellowJohnny
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Christian
- Joined
- Nov 16, 2021
- Threads
- 69
- Messages
- 1,258
- Reaction score
- 2,002
- Location
- YYZ
- Vehicles
- 2022 Mach-E Premium AWD
- Occupation
- Solution Architect
Has an overhead pantograph approach been piloted for electric cars anywhere? It's well-known tech, and perhaps could be used on long stretches of freeway. Drive on battery most of the time, then for highway driving switch to the panto. Maybe just in a single dedicated lane?This is one part of a complex puzzle. 5 minute charging means roughly 1000kw chargers. That’s a shit ton of power. We can’t even pull that for battery electric buses yet, and they don’t even use cables, they use overhead pantographs (although 600kw is in the works for pantograph charging). Bus batteries are also over 400kwh and charge at 800V.
1000kw charging, over a cable, for a car battery that’s less than 100kwh, using todays lithium ion batteries, is not happening anytime soon (although I’d like it to as much as everyone else).
Edit: if we are talking 5 minutes to charge from 20-80%, that’s still a charge rate of over 700kw for the MME extended range. We can’t even hit 150kw sustained yet, and it’s not because of the cable.
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