Hybrid Skymaster in regular flying
https://www.flyingmag.com/story/aircraft/ampaire-hybrid-electric-trials-begin/
An Israeli company developed electric car batteries that can be fully charged in 5 minutes, according to this Guardian article
If true, this would be a major advantage for BEV cars (and planes), although the article hints at the problem being that you require a very high powered charger to achieve the fast charging process.
Silvaire wrote:
I have been calculating the amount I spend on energy for a long time and its consistently been about 4% of gross to fuel home, cars, planes etc combined, but not including indirect fuel purchases like airline tickets. As my possessions and responsibilities have grown, and with it my total energy consumption, so has my income. If that holds true for other people…
Catching up on this thread. While I pay attention to the amount I spend on energy and make reasonable efforts not to be wasteful, I had never really thought about it as a proportion of income or attempted to calculate it.
Just did some rough back-of-an-envelope stuff on what my girlfriend and I spend on energy (electricity, LPG, diesel, avgas) as a proportion of our gross household income….. and it’s about 4%!
To charge some big car in 5 mins may be possible with battery technology but you would need the mother of all cables and connectors 
Or a high charging voltage, which is presumably how they would do it.
I’ve prewired the relevant part of the house for 3 phase (100A per phase) but we are in no hurry to get it connected because it would cost 5-10k and our spend on diesel is 1.5 tanks (£100) per month…
MedEwok wrote:
An Israeli company developed electric car batteries that can be fully charged in 5 minutes, according to this Guardian articleIf true, this would be a major advantage for BEV cars (and planes), although the article hints at the problem being that you require a very high powered charger to achieve the fast charging process.
I read that article this morning. It talks about ‘an electric car battery’ but then reveals later that they’re talking about a battery which, if depleted per the energy requirements of a typical electric car, would give a range of approximately 100 miles. That is too low (by a multiple of 2 or 3) to gain market acceptance outside of niche applications such as city dwellers who rarely travel more than a few miles (and they aren’t supposed to use cars anyway), so hardly meets any reasonable definition of what they describe it as. They then, as you mention, admit that charging it in 5 minutes requires the mother of all electricity supplies.
In typical Guardian style they give no data whatsoever on the capacity of the battery, charging current, etc. I bet you could count the number of science degrees on the Guardian staff on the fingers of one hand.
That doesn’t matter. If you can charge one battery in 5 minutes, you can charge 2 batteries in 5 minutes and get 200 miles range. If the battery chemistry permits it, then you can scale it up.
If you wanted to make a fast charging station that was used relatively infrequently you could have a battery pack in it on constant slow charge and use that to power the charger.
kwlf wrote:
That doesn’t matter. If you can charge one battery in 5 minutes, you can charge 2 batteries in 5 minutes and get 200 miles range. If the battery chemistry permits it, then you can scale it up.
Perhaps it’s not a technology obstacle, but it brings about major issues with economics and practicality. The end game is always to develop a practical and useable product. Given the caveats that always surround these things, it is not unreasonable to assume that this new battery is unfeasibly expensive – so ‘just have two of them’ is not much of a solution. Then we have the fact that it requires a charger the like of which no-one is going to have.
Graham wrote:
In typical Guardian style they give no data whatsoever on the capacity of the battery, charging current, etc. I bet you could count the number of science degrees on the Guardian staff on the fingers of one hand.
Yes, with very few exceptions, the scientific knowledge/background of Guardian authors is usually very poor. It seems like they all studied some social studies or languages…
Googling around (including the company’s website store-dot.com) it seems that the story has been widely reported and nobody is giving those details. Store-dot.com says that the battery will power electric vehicles for up to 300 miles, which is a discrepancy with the Guardian report. But really that is always going to depend on how many cells you put in a battery and how big the EV is.
There were lots of old press releases about 5 minute batteries. It seems that what’s new (which seems to have been missed from the news reports) is that these cells were manufacturerd in China industrially, rather than being made in small batches in a lab. They argue that they should be cheap as they use silicon in the place of germanium or niobium like previous 5 minute batteries – and this seems reasonable enough though presumably the comparison is with other 5 minute batteries rather than existing technology. On the other hand they are very sketchy about the energy density or actual likely costs of their batteries.
There is so much nonsense. More than 50% of new cars sold in Norway are now EV. I’m on my second electric car already. Chargers today comes in fast chargers and something we call “Lightening chargers” (Lyn-lading), Blitz-chargers is probably a better translation. Fast chargers are from 50 kW to 135 kW. Blitz chargers are from 150 to currently 350 kW. As of now there are 48 places with 350 kW chargers in Norway alone. 350 kW is a lot car vise, still it hardly makes a dent in the power grid. Currently only Porsche can be charged with 350 kW AFAIK, but new cars keep coming constantly at ever increasing rate.
With 350 kW you can charge in 20 minutes and drive for 500 km (typically, or rather theoretically as temperature etc also affects this). It’s funny how everyone who hasn’t yet converted to electric cars are way over the top obsessed with range Last Sunday, my wife and I drove 400 km in -15 to -19 degree C in an electric car with 250 km “summer range”, meaning 130 km -20 deg range no problems whatsoever. 99.9% of the charging is done at home with an ordinary wall outlet. Typically 3 kW or something like that. Keep the car like that, and 99.9% of your trips are covered. On the occasional longer trip, simply time the charging with a lunch, dinner or snack. The money saved in gas will cover Michelin restaurant food, no problem.
After buying an electric car, the first thing you forget is gas stations. You never go to them anymore. Then, you start wondering why you never charge your car at a fast charger, and wonder what this range hysteria is all about I know you don’t believe me, all I can say is try. You will never return to fossil car when you do.
