[ricardobeat]

Not really feasible for cars. You’d need a 4.8MW charger, 6000 amps at 800V, to charge this battery in five minutes – maybe more, this a conservative estimate ignoring losses and assuming 400kWh capacity.

Tesla’s monstrous EV truck charger puts out 1.2MW, and it’s already wild, as well as an infrastructure problem more than anything else.

I’m betting on battery swapping as the future, we already have it in 3 minutes, next-gen stations are dropping to 90 seconds for a swap. No charger will ever compete with that unless we discover entirely new power transmission tech.

The swap stations can trickle charge, don’t need massive power lines, and can also balance the grid. Batteries are less stressed, can be monitored and (re)cycled safely at scale. Fast cycle times means more capacity = less queues. Once the technology involved is standardized [1] and becomes a commodity there will be almost no downsides.

[1] already happening via Choco/CATL/Nio in China and potentially the EU

[LargoLasskhyfv]

Don't be so unimaginative. It's for flying cars. They can simply top up by hovering over high-voltage transmission lines, extending flexible tentacles downwards, to suck up some juice.

[ZeroGravitas]

4 MW chargers are currently being rolled out for electric ferries, so I don't see anything impossible about this future tech.

Seems silly for passenger car usage though where you could just use a much smaller battery using the same tech to get plenty of rang and so cut weight and get better efficiency.

[ricardobeat]

Deploying this kind of infrastructure for one-off industrial installations is not the same as, say, 70.000 supercharger locations around the world, never mind the 2.7 million 'normal' power charging points that currently exist and actually serve the majority of EV owners.

Indeed the best use of this tech would be a smaller capacity battery with ±1000km range, though achieving <10m charging time even on that will still be a challenge.

[tim333]

BYD are building a bunch of 1MW chargers in China. That seems fast enough for practical purposes - 250 miles of range in five minutes. I'll normally stop for a coffee every 120 miles or so if driving long distances anyway even if not needing charge/gas.

[lesuorac]

Is swapping batteries socially acceptable now?

IIUC, the big problem is that people didn't want to end up with a worse battery than their current one.

[ricardobeat]

With frequent swapping it’s not a big concern. Batteries that become unhealthy are taken out of circulation, so you’re guaranteed a minimum level of performance, and can always swap again.

[cjrp]

And of course you can always purchase a Swap Premium membership, to guarantee only batteries which still have > 90% capacity are used for your vehicle!

[therealpygon]

Wait. You mean I’d have the option to use perfectly fine batteries that would be more available and save money? Sounds pretty good.

[cjrp]

Absolutely! For even more savings, why not try out ad-supported CommuterLite package?

[deburo]

Perhaps this will end up being a non-problem if all the cars are owned by car sharing (taxis) operators.