Charge your EV to 80% in half an hour?

i-miev-quick-charge

We are so used to checking 0 to 100 numbers when we look at car specs, but when electric cars start penetrating the market in a bigger way, we might be looking at another kind of 0 to 100 number – 100 percent that is. How long will it take for a certain car to get a full charge on the battery?

Mitsubishi’s i-MiEV can get from 0 to 80 in just 30 minutes with a new quick charger supplied by the Tokyo Electric Power Company. The quick charger uses a 3-phase 400V input (Japan uses 110V power) and outputs a 50kW DC output. The maximum DC out is 500V and 100A. The quick charger measures about 2 meters tall by 1 meter wide and 80cm deep.

Such chargers can be implemented at highway rest stops for electric cars to do longer journeys in Malaysia. For shorter journeys, you can drive to work and back or perhaps just give your car a little charge at the office, but then of course there is the issue of our parking lots not having charging bays. Without a way to charge (as in $$$) people to charge their cars, EV charging will be centered mostly at home for quite some time.

Would you be able to accept an EV for daily use if you can charge it up to 80% capacity in half an hour? In the whole Malaysian context I feel it would be a little hard for me to accept an EV as my sole car at the moment. Even the cheapest car here in Malaysia still requires a loan of a few years to afford to buy, and an EV is just not versatile enough for me to commit a few years of car loan to buy one. Things are probably different in Europe where buying a car does not take that huge of a strain on your monthly income and you can have one city vehicle while keeping another long distance wagon or something.

Looking to sell your car? Sell it with Carro.

10% discount when you renew your car insurance

Compare prices between different insurer providers and use the promo code 'PAULTAN10' when you make your payment to save the most on your car insurance renewal compared to other competing services.

Car Insurance

Paul Tan

After dabbling for years in the IT industry, Paul Tan initially began this site as a general blog covering various topics of personal interest. With an increasing number of readers paying rapt attention to the motoring stories, one thing led to another and the rest, as they say, is history.

 

Comments

  • If investing on infra for electric plugs, must as well save up and invest on hydrogen fueling station!

    H20 is the way to go

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
  • aliBaPa on Dec 10, 2009 at 11:39 pm

    yeah lor

    electric car can only be city car

    but not everyone so rich to own a second car

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
  • squawk on Dec 10, 2009 at 11:49 pm

    While waiting for your EV to charge at the station, you can go makan, read newspaper, surf paultan.org and pangsai.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
  • dejavu on Dec 10, 2009 at 11:56 pm

    A current simple petrol fill-up takes 1 to 5 minutes.

    Imagine waiting 30min at PLUS R&R or even more when all d charge bays are occupied, before continuing d journey.

    Mayb s'one should come out wit portable or interchangable universal batteries tat u just buy fully charged, swap n replace at service stations. Similarly as our household gas tanks.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
  • Another caution we should consider, if we want to implement these charging stations in Malaysia later is to have a completely sheltered charging stations to avoid sudden tropical rainstorms. Otherwise, lots of people might get electrocuted while charging! Being said that, our home is probably the safest place to do the job.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
  • shaycoat on Dec 11, 2009 at 12:22 am

    Hi Paul,

    The charging time is actually depends on how much current can be supplied by the charging station. We can have shorter time if the current draw is higher. Thus, totally depends on TNB.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
  • thats in japan, they're are starting to convert and install electric chargers in fuel station nationwide.

    we still have to wait for quite some time for similar tech to arrive here.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
  • Ronaldo on Dec 11, 2009 at 1:18 am

    lithium ion battery gonna be dinosour in few years time. Scientist is developing paper battery which is cheap 10 times more powerful than the best battery now. Read this

    Ordinary paper could one day be used as a lightweight battery to power the devices that are now enabling the printed word to be eclipsed by e-mail, e-books and online news.

    Scientists at Stanford University in California reported on Monday they have successfully turned paper coated with ink made of silver and carbon nanomaterials into a "paper battery" that holds promise for new types of lightweight, high-performance energy storage.

    The same feature that helps ink adhere to paper allows it to hold onto the single-walled carbon nanotubes and silver nanowire films. Earlier research found that silicon nanowires could be used to make batteries 10 times as powerful as lithium-ion batteries now used to power devices such as laplop computers.

    "Taking advantage of the mature paper technology, low cost, light and high-performance energy-storage are realized by using conductive paper as current collectors and electrodes," the scientists said in research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

    This type of battery could be useful in powering electric or hybrid vehicles, would make electronics lighter weight and longer lasting, and might even lead someday to paper electronics, the scientists said. Battery weight and life have been an obstacle to commercial viability of electric-powered cars and trucks.

    "Society really needs a low-cost, high-performance energy storage device, such as batteries and simple supercapacitors," Stanford assistant professor of materials science and engineering and paper co-author Yi Cui said.

    Cui said in an e-mail that in addition to being useful for portable electronics and wearable electronics, "Our paper supercapacitors can be used for all kinds of applications that require instant high power."

    "Since our paper batteries and supercapacitors can be very low cost, they are also good for grid-connected energy storage," he said.

    Peidong Yang, professor of chemistry at the University of California-Berkeley, said the technology could be commercialized within a short time.

    u can google to find our more about paper battery.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
  • squawk on Dec 11, 2009 at 1:59 am

    dejavu, Better Place is trying to implement the battery swapping stations concept.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
  • Anonymous on Dec 11, 2009 at 3:05 am

    Waaah. surely TNB will get huge profit.

    Wonder how much it will cost to charge.

    People will rush to charge station the night before the price hike. Or some of them stuck in traffic jam when the battery flat.

    Omg, i can't imagine that day come true in the future.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
  • squawk on Dec 11, 2009 at 4:08 am

    Potential excuses for employees will be:

    1) Boss, power failure in my area. Car no juice.

    2) Late because battery flat

    3) Long line at charging station.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
  • guest on Dec 11, 2009 at 5:05 am

    just swap battery is better, no one gonna wait 30 min to charge battery

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
  • rexis on Dec 11, 2009 at 8:39 am

    Nonetheless the iMiVEC is very interesting.

    I would live with 30 mins but you will never know in case of emergency you would really appreciate 3 minutes pump. A range extender is always a blessing.

    And 500V 100A! That is already a factory class power supply! Lets not say if TNB have all those power or not, their ability to set up a power line equivalent to industrial area needs in the middle of plus highway aka nowhere is doubtable.

    And then, also, this is a country where people consider a RM30k new car is very cheap, yet very expensive.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
  • it requires 100A input? my my….definitely can't charge it at home!

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
  • MADBOY on Dec 12, 2009 at 12:49 am

    Wish the battery for Terminator T800 is a real thing. Can power your car up to 100 years. lol

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
  • No worries my friends, electric cars are still new and the research is still ongoing to improve the current productions.. Our own government & local auto's producer starting to concern on this friends, nothing will impossible when it comes to new technology.. We WILL have this in future, trust me :)

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
  • Elvis on Dec 13, 2009 at 5:33 pm

    I am very sure that mass produced electric cars will come with a small generator to charge up the battery and to extended the mileages. In fact, with the small generator, you actually dont have to worry about your car going out of electrical charge. I really dont understand why so many people are doubtful about electrical car or concern about the mileage without considering about the back up generator. We should extend our mentality of these soon to be implemented technology. We really dont have a choice, coz oil is really running out, and yet even the governments keep on the denial just because of serving economic and self interest agendas. We cannot deny the facts. The fact is carbon monoside is bad for environment and our health, good for the economy in the medium term, bad for us consumers in longer term. And pleaselah, why these BeeEnd never ending talk about improving public transport, Malaysia has the lousiest PT in the world. No need shouting Malaysia to the rest of the world if you cant have PT in place..

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
  • squawk on Dec 14, 2009 at 1:38 am

    You mean like how a minster compared some of our PT providers to toilets? :-) I wonder who's the toilet – the minster or the PT which is under the minster. Has he ever taken PT on a regular basis?

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0
 

Add a comment

required

required