AC vs DC for charging without private parking

Thierry12 · 20-08-2020 1:04pm #1

Mod Note: Pulled out of the Ionity thread because it was pulling it off topic

MJohnston wrote: »

Again—you can't
Most EV drivers will get far less than 100% of their electric at charging stations.

The one's that don't have fancy driveway's?

KCross · 20-08-2020 2:19pm

Maybe it highlights the real cost of these networks.

There is a huge difference to have 50kW available and 350kW available. Its not just the price of the charger/cable or the kWh price of the electricity itself. Its also the price for having that grid connection "on tap" regardless of whether its used or not.

Comparing you home electricity rate against a 350kW rapid charger and saying its a ripoff is ignoring the real costs involved in having that level of power available.

EV drivers will need to get used to these prices and ensure they buy an EV with the appropriate battery size for them that limits their reliance on high powered rapids.

redcup342 · 20-08-2020 5:39pm

Thierry12 wrote: »

The one's that don't have fancy driveway's?

Yep, build out 11kW Chargers on street for EV parking only and enforce it with towaway.

Have a decent policy for providing them:
E.G.
https://www.eindhoven.nl/en/city-and-living/city/parking/charging-points-for-electric-vehicles

Rapid Chargers are far less important for the majority of people than the availability of AC Charging where they live and can charge while they are doing other stuff.

liamog · 20-08-2020 5:48pm

redcup342 wrote: »

Yep, build out 11kW Chargers on street for EV parking only and enforce it with towaway.

...

Rapid Chargers are far less important for the majority of people than the availability of AC Charging where they live and can charge while they are doing other stuff.

The alternative is 50kW DC charging hubs, much cheaper to provide the electricity and 42 of them can be installed using the same grid connection as the 6 chargers provided by Ionity. Now we just need to find a site where people will spend about an hour a week that has plenty of car parking ...

redcup342 · 20-08-2020 6:12pm

liamog wrote: »

The alternative is 50kW DC charging hubs, much cheaper to provide the electricity and 42 of them can be installed using the same grid connection as the 6 chargers provided by Ionity. Now we just need to find a site where people will spend about an hour a week that has plenty of car parking ...

That sounds like petrol station mentality.

That's not a model that works, go to Monaco 50KW DC Chargers all over the place, cars charge too quickly so people don't get back within the timeframe of whatever they are doing so there are fully charged cars sitting on chargers meaning they aren't available for other people.

Plus they need a tethered cable so they get broken very quickly, the ones that required your own Type 2 Cable require hardly any maintenence.

Cost difference is rather significant as well and the footprint is much larger (you don't need a big dedicated transformed for AC Chargers and can place them on city streets)

liamog · 21-08-2020 10:58am

redcup342 wrote: »

That sounds like petrol station mentality.

That's not a model that works, go to Monaco 50KW DC Chargers all over the place, cars charge too quickly so people don't get back within the timeframe of whatever they are doing so there are fully charged cars sitting on chargers meaning they aren't available for other people.

Can you share a study showing that the model doesn't work? From the video's I've seen of Milton Keynes and Dundee, charging hubs appear to be a quite successful solution for those who don't have the ability to charge at home.

To tie this back to Ionity, it was only yesterday that I realised the electrical requirements for an Ionity site (6x350kW) is the equivalent of 42 50kW chargers, the extra cost is starting to make sense.

ELM327 · 21-08-2020 11:14am

liamog wrote: »

Can you share a study showing that the model doesn't work? From the video's I've seen of Milton Keynes and Dundee, charging hubs appear to be a quite successful solution for those who don't have the ability to charge at home.

To tie this back to Ionity, it was only yesterday that I realised the electrical requirements for an Ionity site (6x350kW) is the equivalent of 42 50kW chargers, the extra cost is starting to make sense.

I think using that power for 4* 150kW and 15 50kW would be a better use.

redcup342 · 21-08-2020 1:01pm

liamog wrote: »

Can you share a study showing that the model doesn't work? From the video's I've seen of Milton Keynes and Dundee, charging hubs appear to be a quite successful solution for those who don't have the ability to charge at home.

To tie this back to Ionity, it was only yesterday that I realised the electrical requirements for an Ionity site (6x350kW) is the equivalent of 42 50kW chargers, the extra cost is starting to make sense.

Well I can give you a model that does work:
https://www.emobilitysimplified.com/2019/12/netherlands-highest-density-ev-charging-infrastructure.html

Netherlands is currently the Mecca for EV Charging when you don't have your parking space, or even if you rent a space in a public garage.
There are over 49,000 regular public & semi-public AC charging points, more than 1100 fast chargers, almost 45:1 ratio.

You can drive in the Netherlands with the aim of arriving at your destination and then charge rather than having to charge before reaching your destination because you need extra charge to get back.

Their policy works, the proportion of BEV against PEV is way higher then any other EU Country:
https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/proportion-of-vehicle-fleet-meeting-4/assessment-4

They don't have any range anxiety because they can plug in almost anywhere and charge at 6-11kW, while they shop/eat/go to work/exercise/visit family etc.

The Cities that tried to adopt Rapid Charging stations, they i've personally experienced.

Budapest (molplugee) - 34 Rapid Charging stations around the City Center, always busy, nobody wants to sit in their car waiting to charge and then move again to find another parking space.

Paris Rapid Chargers (Belib) - Rapid Chargers all over the place, hardly anyone uses them as they opt for the AC (Type 3c) Chargers and just plug in whenever they stop somewhere, charging is opportunistic, there are so many on street chargers they never need to "fill"

Monaco - People using DC and AC have the same behavior, plug in and go, they don't really care which as they will leave the car there while they go about their business anyway, DC Chargers are wasted as people sit the same amount of time on AC as DC but get the same amount of kWhs.

^^ All of the above the maintenance costs are much higher for the DC Charging stations than AC, Tethered cables can get cracked/broken.

You can deploy around 10 Charging poles (20 points) for every 1 50 kW DC Rapid Charger, that means 20 cars can charge at the same time vs 20 cars having to share 1 charger.

DC Fast charging is Great for long trips, AC is perfect for your Destination (and long trips if you are doing a break in between in a city)

You'll never get high density with DC Charging and if charging your car required going to some sort of central hub where you have to stay with the car and then move it again, kind of defeats the whole purpose of having an EV.

I mean most of the time I never spend any time waiting to charge as it's done when I'm at work or at home or somewhere else parked.

liamog · 21-08-2020 2:59pm

So it's not really a model that doesn't work, you've just presented lots of examples of an alternative model.

I don't see the future solution for people without private parking to be ubiquitous AC chargers. It only really works if every space is given an AC charger, Irish streetscapes are cramped enough without adding the further clutter of AC charging posts.
I wouldn't want to park 1km away from my home on a tuesday night because that's where the nearest available charger is, additionally the person who lives on that street probably wants the spot outside there house for themselves.

Charging hubs work when they are placed at the correct location, they need to be sited at places people are already used to spending between 30m and an hour. It's kind of the opposite of petrol station mentality, as it's placing the chargers where the person is anyway.

redcup342 · 21-08-2020 3:45pm

liamog wrote: »

So it's not really a model that doesn't work, you've just presented lots of examples of an alternative model.

I don't see the future solution for people without private parking to be ubiquitous AC chargers. It only really works if every space is given an AC charger, Irish streetscapes are cramped enough without adding the further clutter of AC charging posts.
I wouldn't want to park 1km away from my home on a tuesday night because that's where the nearest available charger is, additionally the person who lives on that street probably wants the spot outside there house for themselves.

Charging hubs work when they are placed at the correct location, they need to be sited at places people are already used to spending between 30m and an hour. It's kind of the opposite of petrol station mentality, as it's placing the chargers where the person is anyway.

Well I have pointed out where DC Charging happens in Cities and it hasn't worked out.

In NL having a dedicated parking space for your property is very rare, even more so than Ireland.

Aim of that policy I linked to as an example is to have a charger no more than 300 meters from your home, if it's unavailable all the time they add another one.

For street parking, nobody is entitled to a space outside their house anyway, the exception being if they are disabled (here at least)

liamog · 21-08-2020 8:21pm

What type of DC chargers were installed in those cities, was it the hub style like Dundee and Milton Keynes, Paris is the only one I'm familiar with, and they were relatively useless on street DC supplies.

As much as you don't get dedicated onstreet parking here either, what tends to happen is that you end up with reasonably the same space every day in your estate, it kind of works itself out. My wife get's annoyed if someone parks outside our house even though it's not dedicated parking. One charger within 300m of my house would cover at least 300 cars, so just isn't going to cut it as a solution.

redcup342 · 25-08-2020 9:37am

liamog wrote: »

What type of DC chargers were installed in those cities, was it the hub style like Dundee and Milton Keynes, Paris is the only one I'm familiar with, and they were relatively useless on street DC supplies.

As much as you don't get dedicated onstreet parking here either, what tends to happen is that you end up with reasonably the same space every day in your estate, it kind of works itself out. My wife get's annoyed if someone parks outside our house even though it's not dedicated parking. One charger within 300m of my house would cover at least 300 cars, so just isn't going to cut it as a solution.

efacec QC45 Quick Chargers in Budapest and Monaco
The Belib ones were some weird custom things I've never seen before.
There were some QC45 Rapids run by EDF as well in Paris but very rare.

Regarding this 1 Charger covering 300 cars ... the point is you keep installing them until demand is met in the area. You can deploy many chargers on street for a fraction of the cost of DC Chargers and people can charge their cars when their at home watching TV or sleeping rather than going to a hub and waiting around for their car to charge.

liamog · 25-08-2020 10:10am

It's not the particular model that I'm interested in, it's the format they are installed.
The belib's in Paris were leftover from a failed shared car system, so weren't designed to address neighbourhood charging requirements.

redcup342 · 25-08-2020 10:25am

liamog wrote: »

It's not the particular model that I'm interested in, it's the format they are installed.
The belib's in Paris were leftover from a failed shared car system, so weren't designed to address neighbourhood charging requirements.

Mmmm .. no .. you're confusing Belib (charging network) with Autolib (Car sharing)

The leftover charging poles from Autolib are 3.7kW and are the most popular for charging.

Belib (owned by Izivia) run the entire Network, 3.7kW AC, 22 kW AC and the DC Fast chargers.

Some chargers use the Izivia branding as well.

Those Autolib cars are still driving around paris, they sold them off for peanuts years ago, no DC Charging on those though

25-08-2020 11:10am

It's just not going to work unless we can pull into any garage and charge like ICEs can fill up with liquid fuels. Not having to think about it or plan it, the majority of People don't want to do this.

+ the risk of queuing and if chargers are down etc.

redcup342 · 25-08-2020 11:39am

Deleted User wrote: »

It's just not going to work unless we can pull into any garage and charge like ICEs can fill up with liquid fuels. Not having to think about it or plan it, the majority of People don't want to do this.

+ the risk of queuing and if chargers are down etc.

My last week,

Monday charged in work to 80%
Wednesday went to IKEA for 2 hours - Charged @ 11KW AC
Thursday went to Aldi - Charged 30 minutes
Saturday went for Breakfast - Charged 1 hr 45 minutes @ 11kW AC on Public AC Charger
Sunday went to the Swimming pool up in Oberhausen, charged for 1.5 hours on Tesla Destination charger in public garage.

Yesterday was back in IKEA again looking for some more bits and charged then as well, even went to a second IKEA close by to look for a certain set of window blinds plugged in for 10 minutes.

But basically whenever I park I try to charge, the battery hovers between 30% and 80%, I hardly ever use DC Fast Charging at all.

I can't imagine wasting my time having to go somewhere and wait for my car to charge, I've only had to do that in places where there is a lack of on street AC Charging

For longer distance trips I use DC Charging for sure, but i'll try and incorporate a longer AC Charging stop in a City to get some value out of it (and take advantage of free parking with a great location and some sight seeing)

Only time I'll use a Petrol Station is to go to the Toilet or buy something on a Sunday when the shops are closed

liamog · 25-08-2020 12:50pm

redcup342 wrote: »

Mmmm .. no .. you're confusing Belib (charging network) with Autolib (Car sharing)

Ok, I knew autolib had closed, and thought that belib were contracted to run them. Looking on Plugshare, it certainly doesn't appear that belib have installed any charging hubs with multitudes of DC chargers.

ELM327 · 25-08-2020 12:57pm

redcup342 wrote: »

My last week,

Monday charged in work to 80%
Wednesday went to IKEA for 2 hours - Charged @ 11KW AC
Thursday went to Aldi - Charged 30 minutes
Saturday went for Breakfast - Charged 1 hr 45 minutes @ 11kW AC on Public AC Charger
Sunday went to the Swimming pool up in Oberhausen, charged for 1.5 hours on Tesla Destination charger in public garage.

Yesterday was back in IKEA again looking for some more bits and charged then as well, even went to a second IKEA close by to look for a certain set of window blinds plugged in for 10 minutes.

But basically whenever I park I try to charge, the battery hovers between 30% and 80%, I hardly ever use DC Fast Charging at all.

I can't imagine wasting my time having to go somewhere and wait for my car to charge, I've only had to do that in places where there is a lack of on street AC Charging

For longer distance trips I use DC Charging for sure, but i'll try and incorporate a longer AC Charging stop in a City to get some value out of it (and take advantage of free parking with a great location and some sight seeing)

Only time I'll use a Petrol Station is to go to the Toilet or buy something on a Sunday when the shops are closed

That's very helpful for most folk who don't drive many miles.

In the pre covid times I needed to charge every day in my model S, so your model of random topups wouldnt work. But for most folk (including me at the moment!) it would

liamog · 25-08-2020 12:57pm

redcup342 wrote: »

My last week,

Monday charged in work to 80%
Wednesday went to IKEA for 2 hours - Charged @ 11KW AC
Thursday went to Aldi - Charged 30 minutes
Saturday went for Breakfast - Charged 1 hr 45 minutes @ 11kW AC on Public AC Charger
Sunday went to the Swimming pool up in Oberhausen, charged for 1.5 hours on Tesla Destination charger in public garage.

Yesterday was back in IKEA again looking for some more bits and charged then as well, even went to a second IKEA close by to look for a certain set of window blinds plugged in for 10 minutes.

But basically whenever I park I try to charge, the battery hovers between 30% and 80%, I hardly ever use DC Fast Charging at all.

That sounds like an absolutely terrible existence. Workplace charging is a reasonable alternative for those without home charging, but I don't think anyone will want to be constantly sucking electrons like that.

I can't imagine wasting my time having to go somewhere and wait for my car to charge,

That's the bit you are missing, I said "Now we just need to find a site where people will spend about an hour a week that has plenty of car parking ..."

The ideal circumstance is charging hubs co-located with weekly shopping locations. Your car get's a full charge whilst you do your weekly shop, much better than having to park your car 500m from home one night a week.

ELM327 · 25-08-2020 1:12pm

liamog wrote: »

That sounds like an absolutely terrible existence. Workplace charging is a reasonable alternative for those without home charging, but I don't think anyone will want to be constantly sucking electrons like that.

That's the bit you are missing, I said "Now we just need to find a site where people will spend about an hour a week that has plenty of car parking ..."

The ideal circumstance is charging hubs co-located with weekly shopping locations. Your car get's a full charge whilst you do your weekly shop, much better than having to park your car 500m from home one night a week.

And hopefully they install banks of 50kW chargers, the new "mild fast" there. 1 hour shopping and you're back to 80-90% in most cars.

redcup342 · 25-08-2020 1:17pm

ELM327 wrote: »

That's very helpful for most folk who don't drive many miles.

In the pre covid times I needed to charge every day in my model S, so your model of random topups wouldnt work. But for most folk (including me at the moment!) it would

I drove 750km in those days

liamog wrote: »

That sounds like an absolutely terrible existence. Workplace charging is a reasonable alternative for those without home charging, but I don't think anyone will want to be constantly sucking electrons like that.

Why ? I didn't have to search for any parking, I just drove to the AC Charging point near where I was going to.

liamog wrote: »

That's the bit you are missing, I said "Now we just need to find a site where people will spend about an hour a week that has plenty of car parking ..."

The ideal circumstance is charging hubs co-located with weekly shopping locations. Your car get's a full charge whilst you do your weekly shop, much better than having to park your car 500m from home one night a week.

My car is sitting parked with 158KM of range left, i didn't need to charge it when I got home as I had opportunistic charging during my normal daily routine, as I said the range will hover around 20-80%, I rarely do a full charge unless I know I'm going on trip.

I don't have to go anywhere to charge my car for my normal weekly stuff. I charge when I'm doing my normal stuff.

The only time I take is the time to plug in the cable and walk away from the car. I spent even more time at the pump waiting for fuel to go in and going into pay.

Worked for me over the past few years anyways.

ELM327 · 25-08-2020 3:08pm

redcup342 wrote: »

I drove 750km in those days

Why ? I didn't have to search for any parking, I just drove to the AC Charging point near where I was going to.

My car is sitting parked with 158KM of range left, i didn't need to charge it when I got home as I had opportunistic charging during my normal daily routine, as I said the range will hover around 20-80%, I rarely do a full charge unless I know I'm going on trip.

I don't have to go anywhere to charge my car for my normal weekly stuff. I charge when I'm doing my normal stuff.

The only time I take is the time to plug in the cable and walk away from the car. I spent even more time at the pump waiting for fuel to go in and going into pay.

Worked for me over the past few years anyways.

750km would be 3-4 days driving for me (pre covid), I wouldnt get enough incidental charging.

redcup342 · 25-08-2020 4:03pm

ELM327 wrote: »

750km would be 3-4 days driving for me (pre covid), I wouldnt get enough incidental charging.

For me Pre Covid I wouldn't have any issues as we have 40x11kW split between two buildings with underground car parks.

I haven't been in the office since March though :rolleyes: strange times.

ELM327 · 25-08-2020 4:15pm

redcup342 wrote: »

For me Pre Covid I wouldn't have any issues as we have 40x11kW split between two buildings with underground car parks.

I haven't been in the office since March though :rolleyes: strange times.

For me my weekday driving was covered by work charging too, so I guess that somewhat proves your point

McGiver · 25-08-2020 11:55pm

redcup342 wrote:

That's not a model that works, go to Monaco 50KW DC Chargers all over the place, cars charge too quickly so people don't get back within the timeframe of whatever they are doing so there are fully charged cars sitting on chargers meaning they aren't available for other people.

You're absolutely right. Massive number of AC chargers is the way to go for cities. DC chargers belong at the petrol stations (mandated by law

redcup342 wrote:

Cost difference is rather significant as well and the footprint is much larger (you don't need a big dedicated transformed for AC Chargers and can place them on city streets)

DC chargers are expensive, faulty and need maintenance, deployment costs are high. The higher the power the worse with regards to the maintenance. AC chargers are way cheaper, way more reliable, cheaper to maintain, cheaper to deploy.

Also, on your point is that no one wants to sit in the car while DC charging - very good point. The DC charging time is too long to wait but too short to leave and do something - the wait is just a waste of time really as you're left with now choice and wait. Whereas AC allows you to leave and do your business while the car is charging. I'm myself a big fan of 11/22 kW AC.

The whole Dublin has 15 DC chargers or so, if I count suburbs like Lucan, Swords and the airport, the city itself has just a few of them.
That's absolutely insufficient and needs work for sure (at least double the number) but the solution isn't massive deployment of DC chargers in cities but rather massive AC deployment. Unfortunately, the number of AC chargers in Dublin isn't great either. The same goes for the largest cities in the Republic i.e. Cork, Limerick and Galway, in fact the AC charger numbers there are laughable.

Just had a look at Prague and Vienna, two cities I'm familiar with, similar to Dublin in size and population. They both have 40+ DC chargers and but are absolutely littered with AC chargers.

liamog · 26-08-2020 4:36pm

McGiver wrote: »

You're absolutely right. Massive number of AC chargers is the way to go for cities. DC chargers belong at the petrol stations (mandated by law

DC chargers are expensive, faulty and need maintenance, deployment costs are high. The higher the power the worse with regards to the maintenance. AC chargers are way cheaper, way more reliable, cheaper to maintain, cheaper to deploy.

Also, on your point is that no one wants to sit in the car while DC charging - very good point. The DC charging time is too long to wait but too short to leave and do something - the wait is just a waste of time really as you're left with now choice and wait. Whereas AC allows you to leave and do your business while the car is charging. I'm myself a big fan of 11/22 kW AC.

We're not discussing DC chargers like the motorways, we're discussing 50kW DC hubs in the likes of supermarket car parks, places where someone without the ability to charge at home likely already spends an hour or so a week. As 50kWh to 75kWh cars become the norm, you are already looking at around an hour to charge at a 50kW charger.

the_amazing_raisin · 26-08-2020 8:01pm

I'm going to suggest that you probably need to target chargers based on dwell time. I always figured it should look like this

Motorway service stations - Min 150kW, charge as fast as possible, at least 4 chargers, redundant internet connections and someone on site trained in how to debug the chargers

Shopping centres, supermarkets, city centers - 50kW DC charging hubs, multiple chargers which can either load share or have extra parking for waiting. Dwell time is typically less than 2 hours so 50kW is enough to get a decent charge.

Car parks, on street parking, office blocks, hotels - Dwell time is probably more than 2 hours but less than 24, use 11kW 3 phase of 7kW single phase chargers, installed on as many spaces as possible. For places like Dublin city, you could either make them for permit holders only, or make them public but give permit holders a discount. For allocated spaces, just cable up for a charger and it's on the space owner to provide and install the charger

Long term parking like airports - dwell time is several days, provide the slowest charge possible, around 2kW, just enough to trickle charge the battery over several days and stop the battery from freezing in winter

McGiver · 26-08-2020 10:59pm

liamog wrote:

We're not discussing DC chargers like the motorways, we're discussing 50kW DC hubs in the likes of supermarket car parks, places where someone without the ability to charge at home likely already spends an hour or so a week. As 50kWh to 75kWh cars become the norm, you are already looking at around an hour to charge at a 50kW charger.

I know and that's what I said - DC hubs belong to motorways and out of the cities as the evidence from Europe shows. AC hubs belong to the cities and car parks.

75 kWh cars don't and won't become the norm anytime soon. The market will stabilise at 50-55 kWh for vast majority of cars, above that is going to be high-end luxury segment.

liamog · 26-08-2020 11:03pm

McGiver wrote: »

I know and that's what I said - DC hubs belong to motorways and out of the cities as the evidence from Europe shows. AC hubs belong to the cities and car parks.

AC hubs won't work though, where does someone that has a 55kWh car spend 5 hours a week parked, that isn't their near their home or workplace. That leaves us with either the choice of AC chargers on all the small streets where people don't have private parking, or hubs at supermarkets.
There is also evidence that suburban DC hubs work, Dundee, and Milton Keynes are examples. I believe Fastned also have some in The Netherlands.

Do you really envision someone driving to giant parking lot and abandoning their car for 5 hours?

McGiver · 26-08-2020 11:39pm

liamog wrote:

AC hubs won't work though, where does someone that has a 55kWh car spend 5 hours a week parked, that isn't their near their home or workplace. That leaves us with either the choice of AC chargers on all the small streets where people don't have private parking, or hubs at supermarkets. There is also evidence that suburban DC hubs work, Dundee, and Milton Keynes are examples. I believe Fastned also have some in The Netherlands.

So there are 3 examples in whole Europe. Two of which are in the UK, so not even continental Europe. That's not many init

Whereas virtually all big cities on the continent don't have any DC hubs.

Suburban maybe. Urban likely not.

redcup342 · 27-08-2020 12:21am

liamog wrote: »

AC hubs won't work though, where does someone that has a 55kWh car spend 5 hours a week parked, that isn't their near their home or workplace. That leaves us with either the choice of AC chargers on all the small streets where people don't have private parking, or hubs at supermarkets.
There is also evidence that suburban DC hubs work, Dundee, and Milton Keynes are examples. I believe Fastned also have some in The Netherlands.

Do you really envision someone driving to giant parking lot and abandoning their car for 5 hours?

Running your battery all the way down to the point where you need to charge for 5 hours isn't necessary if you have high density AC Charging.

Sure that makes total sense if you use Petrol/Diesel/LPG/Hydrogen etc, fuel stations are limited, everyone has to drive to a fuel station to fill up.

In an EV your infrastructure is potentially on every street corner, every parking garage and every motorway route, basically anywhere there is electricity (most of the developed world)

Driving an EV I spend less time "filling" since I just park, plug in and walk away to do whatever I would be doing anyway, takes around 30 seconds of my time, I'll take whatever juice I get from the time there, I don't need to go from 10% - 100%, If I'm at 60% I'll plug in and charge to 80%.

My car is parked over a much longer combined time of 5 hours over the course of a week, so whatever range I use is replenished.

With DC fast charging hubs, you need to go in almost empty for them to make sense, why would I drive into a DC Fast charger with 10% battery when it might be busy and it's possible I have to wait for a free charger. Then I'm 10%, kind of stuck there now waiting.

Which is more efficient ? (Deployment Costs)

3x 50kW DC Rapid Chargers supplying 3 cars at a time with everyone having to stay with the car to charge it

Or

32x 11kW AC Chargers (16 poles) with everyone being able to plug in and walk away to do whatever they need to do ?

It's just changing the way of thinking, you never need to go from Full to Empty anymore, you can go from 60-70% or 30-50% or 60-80% whenever a charger is available.

For your longer trips or trips where your turnaround is very short, thats where DC Rapid Charging is important, but again you only need DC Rapid Charging to get you to your destination doing a full charge on Rapid Charging is a waste of time if you have the option to load on AC when you arrive at wherever you are going.

If you have the possibility I've mentioned above you won't have range anxiety

McGiver · 27-08-2020 8:15am

redcup342 wrote:

3x 50kW DC Rapid Chargers supplying 3 cars at a time with everyone having to stay with the car to charge it

32x 11kW AC Chargers (16 poles) with everyone being able to plug in and walk away to do whatever they need to do ?

This. Exactly. See Netherlands, Norway or even Austria. They actually do this - 11 kW AC everywhere.

Great example but you didn't use the same power, it would be 7x 50 kW vs 32x 11 kW. But still it's 4-5 times more capacity for the same power input for the AC scenario.

Glad you mentioned 11 kW AC. That's another issue left to be addressed in Ireland - Ecars use 22 kW AC which is pointless. Almost no car can take that power - waste of power available on site. They should do 11 kW AC instead. Or 22 kW DC where it suits.

graememk · 27-08-2020 8:46am

McGiver wrote: »

This. Exactly. See Netherlands, Norway or even Austria. They actually do this - 11 kW AC everywhere.

Great example but you didn't use the same power, it would be 7x 50 kW vs 32x 11 kW. But still it's 4-5 times more capacity for the same power input for the AC scenario.

Glad you mentioned 11 kW AC. That's another issue left to be addressed in Ireland - Ecars use 22 kW AC which is pointless. Almost no car can take that power - waste of power available on site. They should do 11 kW AC instead. Or 22 kW DC where it suits.

Can 7kw single be used on the the same system as an 11kw three phase, or if you rock up with your single phase you will only get 3.6kw?

Bit like the 2-6kw on the 44kw chargers

redcup342 · 27-08-2020 10:32am

McGiver wrote: »

This. Exactly. See Netherlands, Norway or even Austria. They actually do this - 11 kW AC everywhere.

Great example but you didn't use the same power, it would be 7x 50 kW vs 32x 11 kW. But still it's 4-5 times more capacity for the same power input for the AC scenario.

Glad you mentioned 11 kW AC. That's another issue left to be addressed in Ireland - Ecars use 22 kW AC which is pointless. Almost no car can take that power - waste of power available on site. They should do 11 kW AC instead. Or 22 kW DC where it suits.

I was going on Deployment costs

and I was being quite generous on a wholesale purchasing cost on a DC Fast Charger, installation costs are quite high (QC45 would be the most common)

https://www.nationalcarcharging.com/products/efacec-qc45-50kw-dc-fast-charger

VS AC Charging points (not exact model in the pic but you get the idea on the price difference)

https://www.cclcomponents.com/evbox-businessline-22kw-three-phase-ev-charging-station

ELM327 · 27-08-2020 10:38am

McGiver wrote: »

This. Exactly. See Netherlands, Norway or even Austria. They actually do this - 11 kW AC everywhere.

Great example but you didn't use the same power, it would be 7x 50 kW vs 32x 11 kW. But still it's 4-5 times more capacity for the same power input for the AC scenario.

Glad you mentioned 11 kW AC. That's another issue left to be addressed in Ireland - Ecars use 22 kW AC which is pointless. Almost no car can take that power - waste of power available on site. They should do 11 kW AC instead. Or 22 kW DC where it suits.

Agree on DC
The issue with 11kW AC is that if a single phase (the majority) plugs in, they only get 16a single phase.

liamog · 27-08-2020 10:54am

McGiver wrote: »

So there are 3 examples in whole Europe. Two of which are in the UK, so not even continental Europe. That's not many init

Whereas virtually all big cities on the continent don't have any DC hubs.

Suburban maybe. Urban likely not.

So what your saying is that now people are investing in a better solution, and other cities need to catch up

I suggest that the reason DC hubs aren't common yet, is due to battery sizes being pretty low until recently. Zoe's are popular in Paris, the original Zoe's can be charged for an hour at a 22kW charge point. A 58kWh ID.3 charging at 50kW is exactly the same principal.

redcup342 · 27-08-2020 11:19am

liamog wrote: »

So what your saying is that now people are investing in a better solution, and other cities need to catch up
I suggest that the reason DC hubs aren't common yet, is due to battery sizes being pretty low until recently. Zoe's are popular in Paris, the original Zoe's can be charged for an hour at a 22kW charge point. A 58kWh ID.3 charging at 50kW is exactly the same principal.

The reason DC Hubs aren't common in cities is because land is expensive and DC Charger installations are expensive.

Once you start getting charged the real price for "High Value" DC Charging (as they call it in the energy industry) it becomes painfully apparent, it runs at around 89 cent / kWh to make it viable (expect the costs to rise when your country becomes EV Mature). So wouldn't really want to rely on it for full time total battery loads anyway. Your talking 10 times the cost of 1 AC Charging unit.

https://newmotion.com/en/ac-charging-vs-dc-charging/

DC charging
Fast chargers for electric vehicles make use of DC charging; they convert the power before it enters the vehicle. After conversion, the power goes directly into the car battery, bypassing the car’s converter.

A DC installation requires a lot of power from the grid (around 125 A). This makes its costs (production, installation and operation) quite high, resulting in higher tariffs for charging. However, as it usually allows for much faster charging, it is the preferred charging method to quickly recharge during long-distance trips (for cars that support DC charging). This type of chargers is mostly found along highways, rather than at home or business locations.

AC charging
This is the most common charging method for electric vehicles with a plug. When plugging an electric vehicle into a normal charge point, the power gets converted inside the vehicle, then moves into the car battery. Charging speeds depend on the output power of the chargepoint as well as the convertor’s capabilities to convert the power to DC.

The required power for AC chargers ranges between 16A (3.7 kWh) and 63A (43 kWh).

This charging method is most suitable for parking spots where the car will stay parked for 20 minutes or longer. Due to its lower costs (production, installation and operation) these are the more commonly found chargers. Also, due to these lower costs it is usually much cheaper to charge at AC chargers, making them more popular for general day to day charging.

The cost reduces the amount you can deploy therefore you can deploy AC way faster than DC.

I've seen more Zoes in Paris charging on Type 3c @ 3.7 kW than the 22kW chargers simply because there are more of them and they are all over the place.

The french would plug into a normal wall socket in a car park if they could find one.

liamog · 27-08-2020 11:45am

redcup342 wrote: »

The reason DC Hubs aren't common in cities is because land is expensive and DC Charger installations are expensive.

Co-location of the DC hubs at existing locations such as supermarkets, largely removes the land cost argument, though I would point out that more land is required for AC chargers ...

I think your 10x cost per kWh is a massive exaggeration. The grid requirements for 5 11kW AC and 1 50kW DC charger are the same, let's assume the charging equipment is roughly €30k for the DC charger, or €4 for the AC charger. These are for commercial models with billing/management all built in.

So roughly speaking the costs are €20k vs €30k per 50kW of charging capacity, so now you've got to figure out how to makeup the €10k over the lifetime of the installation. Let's assume 5 year operation time for them, that gives 1825 days, so €5.48 per day.
Assuming an occupancy rate of 25% at full charging rates. You can sell approx 300kWh per day. So need to charge an extra 1.82c/kWh to cover the extra upfront cost. I appreciate there is likely to be an increase maintenance cost for the DC charger, but I would be surprised if this results in the extra per kWh going over 5c/kWh.

DC charging hubs did not make sense when cars had small batteries, as cars normalise at the 300km range, 50-75kWh batteries will become normal.

ELM327 · 27-08-2020 11:51am

You can buy 25kW DC for a lot less than 30k. Like, 30% of that 30k.

liamog · 27-08-2020 11:54am

ELM327 wrote: »

You can buy 25kW DC for a lot less than 30k. Like, 30% of that 30k.

I also suspect that 50kW DC chargers are a lot cheaper than the 50kW + 43kW AC chargers, but that's the rough price that was given by the poster who claimed AC was viable and DC only viable at 10x the price. The numbers just don't stack up.

redcup342 · 27-08-2020 12:13pm

liamog wrote: »

Co-location of the DC hubs at existing locations such as supermarkets, largely removes the land cost argument, though I would point out that more land is required for AC chargers ...

I think your 10x cost per kWh is a massive exaggeration. The grid requirements for 5 11kW AC and 1 50kW DC charger are the same, let's assume the charging equipment is roughly €30k for the DC charger, or €4 for the AC charger. These are for commercial models with billing/management all built in.

Cost for deployment,
6x11kW plugs is only 3 chargers as they are double sided.

So roughly speaking the costs are €20k vs €30k per 50kW of charging capacity, so now you've got to figure out how to makeup the €10k over the lifetime of the installation. Let's assume 5 year operation time for them, that gives 1825 days, so €5.48 per day.
Assuming an occupancy rate of 25% at full charging rates. You can sell approx 300kWh per day. So need to charge an extra 1.82c/kWh to cover the extra upfront cost. I appreciate there is likely to be an increase maintenance cost for the DC charger, but I would be surprised if this results in the extra per kWh going over 5c/kWh.

You have to put in a significant amount of capital to build out a DC Charger, that credit costs money, that money has to be recouped with a Profit. (Take a look at Ionity pricing)

https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/ICCT_EV_Charging_Cost_20190813.pdf

Have a look at Table 2 Page 2 for Level 2 Networked vs 50kW DC Fast Networked.

DC charging hubs did not make sense when cars had small batteries, as cars normalise at the 300km range, 50-75kWh batteries will become normal.

The size of the battery doesn't really matter as long as you have a reasonable rate of charge and plenty of opportunity to top it up.

liamog wrote: »

I also suspect that 50kW DC chargers are a lot cheaper than the 50kW + 43kW AC chargers, but that's the rough price that was given by the poster who claimed AC was viable and DC only viable at 10x the price. The numbers just don't stack up.

That is true, you can get CCS DC Rapid chargers more cheaply, but then you cut out AC only Vehicles or vehicles still using CHAdeMO

ELM327 · 27-08-2020 12:21pm

redcup342 wrote: »

That is true, you can get CCS DC Rapid chargers more cheaply, but then you cut out AC only Vehicles or vehicles still using CHAdeMO

AC only is dead. Chademo is dying.

You can get 25kW CCS2+Chad+AC22 for less than 10k

liamog · 27-08-2020 12:23pm

Ok so you've taken it to 3.6c/kWh.
We're not talking about Ionity style hyper chargers for hubs.

redcup342 · 27-08-2020 12:34pm

ELM327 wrote: »

AC only is dead. Chademo is dying.

You can get 25kW CCS2+Chad+AC22 for less than 10k

Haven't ever seen a 25kW Connected Consumer charger that does CCS2+CHAdeMO+AC22

If you mean the ABB Terra 24 CJG 20kW those run at about 28k for an install, they are only really used on installations where theres a large solar panel and battery storage onsite and usually only with one charger.

They still have a fairly large footprint and maintenence costs are rather high (the attached cable can frequently become damaged, it can be rather long though meaning it can serve more parking spaces)

Also the example used was 50kW not 20kW, I mean the E-Tron will charge faster than that on AC.

liamog · 27-08-2020 12:50pm

The 50kW Veefil-RT (same as Easy-Go) with 1CCS and CHAdeMO are exactly the type of chargers here's an example of pub chains installing them.

https://www.electrive.com/2020/08/19/drive-energi-fast-charging-deal-with-pub-giant-greene-king/

innrain · 27-08-2020 3:27pm

This sounds so much like Tesla vs Edison debate.
I think it is about two mindsets here. The AC chargers (which are just outlets, the most complicated thing in them being the billing system) were installed by the public sector. Create exposure - lots of them, cheap - good for the reporting and we install lots of them, low maintenance - good again cause we pay flat rate maintenance fee to our brother. Return to Investment - we can't have it all
On the other hand imagine explaining the AC billing to a lean six sigma guru. "So you're telling me I could make a fiver an hour but if a PHEV plugs in I make less than a pound? And if they use the bloody Kramer Type™ cable maybe a dime or less?"
Joke aside DC gives to the charger owner control. 25kWh DC curve is flat for most cars. So you can even charge per minute and incorporate that in your parking billing system. However, till now the private chargers were installed most as a concession, or to gain bonus points for planning permission or just for some press release (back to the civil servant mindset). Only when businesses would see investing in infrastructure as money making exercise we would see this DC popping up. Since then we are at the mercy of our ecars who took 10 year to learn to count to 1. Now they reached 2 but with hiccups.
In Kerry now. The AC network for me here is just a waste of space. I mean no offense to the Sneem people even though their fish and chips is fabulous I can't hog their charger for 9 hours.

redcup342 · 27-08-2020 7:04pm

innrain wrote: »

This sounds so much like Tesla vs Edison debate.
I think it is about two mindsets here. The AC chargers (which are just outlets, the most complicated thing in them being the billing system) were installed by the public sector. Create exposure - lots of them, cheap - good for the reporting and we install lots of them, low maintenance - good again cause we pay flat rate maintenance fee to our brother. Return to Investment - we can't have it all
On the other hand imagine explaining the AC billing to a lean six sigma guru. "So you're telling me I could make a fiver an hour but if a PHEV plugs in I make less than a pound? And if they use the bloody Kramer Type™ cable maybe a dime or less?"
Joke aside DC gives to the charger owner control. 25kWh DC curve is flat for most cars. So you can even charge per minute and incorporate that in your parking billing system. However, till now the private chargers were installed most as a concession, or to gain bonus points for planning permission or just for some press release (back to the civil servant mindset). Only when businesses would see investing in infrastructure as money making exercise we would see this DC popping up. Since then we are at the mercy of our ecars who took 10 year to learn to count to 1. Now they reached 2 but with hiccups.
In Kerry now. The AC network for me here is just a waste of space. I mean no offense to the Sneem people even though their fish and chips is fabulous I can't hog their charger for 9 hours.

AC/Nor DC Chargers have a billing system in them, they usually have a Network Module (3G/4G) that connects back to a central system which handles all that.

The billing structure depends on your billing provider not on who delivers at the AC/DC Charger.

The going rate for AC when it's not subsidised by the state is around 35-40 cent / kWh. Some countries charge / minute instead of per kWh.

Some charge a combination of both.

However in mature countries like NL for example DC is usually always twice or three times the price of AC.

The AC Chargers are low maintenance because they don't have a cable attached.

DC Charger cables get damaged because they are used over and over again, dropped on the floor or driven over.

The AC Network in Ireland is a waste of space because it practically doesn't exist.

Enjoy the cheap ESB Juice while it lasts

liamog · 27-08-2020 8:14pm

redcup342 wrote: »

However in mature countries like NL for example DC is usually always twice or three times the price of AC.

I think that's more of a deficiency in the NL market, in most European countries DC charging is between 30c/kWh and 50c/kWh.
Those rates for AC also seem excessive.

3x AC rates of 30c would place rapid charging at >90c/kWh, in which case there would of been zero pushback on Ionities prices

redcup342 · 27-08-2020 9:16pm

liamog wrote: »

I think that's more of a deficiency in the NL market, in most European countries DC charging is between 30c/kWh and 50c/kWh.
Those rates for AC also seem excessive.

3x AC rates of 30c would place rapid charging at >90c/kWh, in which case there would of been zero pushback on Ionities prices

The reason there was pushback on Ionity was because it went from 8 euros flat, then Chargepass lasted a while then Maingau was the last 'cheap' option.

When I first told everyone on this forum about the Einfachstromladen Product they thought it was a rip off.

Head up towards Denmark and you are paying between 89 and 1.30 / kWh
https://chargemap.com/ikea-taastrup.html

Try a European road trip sometime

liamog · 27-08-2020 9:42pm

redcup342 wrote: »

The reason there was pushback on Ionity was because it went from 8 euros flat, then Chargepass lasted a while then Maingau was the last 'cheap' option.

The pushback on Ionity was because they went from €8 to 79c/kWh. Which was ahead of the market in many countries. It's interesting that the prices are so different across the markets. Clearly it's a bit of a wild west out there!

There has to be some explanation for charging 33c/kWh in France, and 99c/kWh in Denmark. The product isn't that different.

redcup342 · 27-08-2020 10:05pm

liamog wrote: »

The pushback on Ionity was because they went from €8 to 79c/kWh. Which was ahead of the market in many countries. It's interesting that the prices are so different across the markets. Clearly it's a bit of a wild west out there!

There has to be some explanation for charging 33c/kWh in France, and 99c/kWh in Denmark. The product isn't that different.

On the continent we have other options, in Ireland you don’t. The UK network is fairly rubbish as well in my experience, it’s more comfortable these days to drive over east into Czech and Poland than it is to go up north in the UK.

Ionity is a fairly reliable Rapid charging network that was very cheap for a period of time. When you take away that option of course people are going to be annoyed.

Netherlands they didn’t really care all that much as Fastned is far better than Ionity.

In Germany it’s mostly Model 3 drivers that were annoyed because they had more rapid chargers that were ridiculously cheap for full charge or even a comparable price to their own Supercharger network at 33 cent / kWh.

All in all though, people weren’t really using Ionity all that much anyway and were only topping up with Maingau to get home or to where they were going anyway (in Germany at least)

AC vs DC for charging without private parking

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