introducing the cotton battery

I'm glad to see I wasn't taken seriously. What
kind of home system can charge in 12min.
Are you plugged directly into your neighborhood
nuke plant?

Quote: boymimbo

A 12 minute charge means that the leaf is getting its 83MW at a rate of 115KW. What freaking home system is going to be able to supply that? Will all of the charging stations need to change their infrastructure to provide the charge at a higher rate of speed?

In North America and Japan using a standard household outlet (120-volt, 15 amp breaker, 12 amp maximum allowable draw, 1.4 kW) and the 25 ft cable included by Nissan, the Leaf will regain approximately 5 miles of range per hour. So that is roughly 15 hours to full capacity. Normally this is referred to as a Level 1 charging.

I assume that many people who have electric cars invest in a 40 Amp circuit to double that speed.

But, I assume that nobody is going to install a home wiring with a 1200 AMP circuit breaker. This ultra fast charge would only be at dedicated charging stations, and you are probably going to pay a lot more.

That's another limitation of electric cars people don't talk much about. Even if 95% of the time you don't travel over 73 miles in one day, you still have to account for the other 5%. You may have your car parked in your garage for 16 hours 95% of the time, but sometimes you go out late and need to leave early in the morning.

Don't most people use a 220V plug fo the Leaf and draw 15AMP to get the 7 hour charge. The dryer circuit I still think is 30A which might get them to the claimed four hours.

If all parking lots had charging systems and it was made for profit (with initial government incentive), I could see the leaf and other charging systems take off. That is, you pay for the electricity that you use to charge your car. If it takes 23kWH to charge your car, then you should probably be paying an extra $5 to use the charging system, giving the parking lot about $2/charge profit. That would probably pay for itself in about 250 charges or a year.

If you want to go further than 70 miles, you rent a car. Heck, Nissan should just put out a program that gives you heavily discounted car rentals for five years when you buy a Leaf, or some program that lets you borrow a used car off their lot for like $10/day.

There are plenty of people who live in cities who don't own a car yet rent them whenever they need to get out of the city. They just buy the optional car insurance.

Quote: boymimbo

If all parking lots had charging systems and it was made for profit (with initial government incentive), I could see the leaf and other charging systems take off. That is, you pay for the electricity that you use to charge your car. If it takes 23kWH to charge your car, then you should probably be paying an extra $5 to use the charging system, giving the parking lot about $2/charge profit. That would probably pay for itself in about 250 charges or a year.

Why the government incentives? Profit motive is all that should be needed.

Quote:

If you want to go further than 70 miles, you rent a car. Heck, Nissan should just put out a program that gives you heavily discounted car rentals for five years when you buy a Leaf, or some program that lets you borrow a used car off their lot for like $10/day.

Impractical. No sane person is going to do that. $10 a day would be a huge loss for the dealer. The cost you pay for the rental would more than wipe out any savings on fuel vs electricity. And don't forget, Obama has promised to skyrocket electricity rates.

Quote: boymimbo

Don't most people use a 220V plug fo the Leaf and draw 15AMP to get the 7 hour charge. The dryer circuit I still think is 30A which might get them to the claimed four hours.

The 2011-2012 Nissan Leaf has a 3.3-kW charger, while the 2013 model has a 6.6-kW charger.
A 3.3-kW charger will provide a typical plug-in car with an additional 12 to 15 miles of range for each hour of charging (i.e. 7 hours to completely charge)
A 6.6-kW charger, much more useful, will give you 24 to 30 miles of range per hour (maybe 3 hours to fully charge).

Quote: boymimbo

If you want to go further than 70 miles, you rent a car. Heck, Nissan should just put out a program that gives you heavily discounted car rentals for five years when you buy a Leaf, or some program that lets you borrow a used car off their lot for like $10/day.

There are plenty of people who live in cities who don't own a car yet rent them whenever they need to get out of the city. They just buy the optional car insurance.

My high school friend would pay to keep a car in Manhattan, which seemed ridiculous to me. I think it was a status symbol. He never drove it, and it cost a fortune to garage. It seemed to make much more sense to rent a car when he left the city.

A Prius starts at $24.2K and gets 51/48 est. mpg. The battery alone in a Nissan Leaf costs $18K. I can't get past that price.

if it was a way for Nissan to get more cars out the door (1/2 off car rentals for longer drives) I think they would do it.

All governments participate in policy changes via taxes, tariffs, or incentives. Moving to electric cars moves pollution and is much cleaner than burning fossil fuels and the production and delivery of oil. Even at $5 for 73 miles that's a good deal and about 1/2 the price of gas. Lowering demand for gasoline will lower prices. Lowering prices generally is good for everyone except oil producers.

Quote: boymimbo

if it was a way for Nissan to get more cars out the door (1/2 off car rentals for longer drives) I think they would do it.

All governments participate in policy changes via taxes, tariffs, or incentives. Moving to electric cars moves pollution and is much cleaner than burning fossil fuels and the production and delivery of oil. Even at $5 for 73 miles that's a good deal and about 1/2 the price of gas. Lowering demand for gasoline will lower prices. Lowering prices generally is good for everyone except oil producers.

This would be true if electricity came from the outlet in your wall, but it usually comes from coal or natural gas. There may be reasons to drive an electric, but "saving the planet" is not one of them.

Quote: Pacomartin

That's another limitation of electric cars people don't talk much about. Even if 95% of the time you don't travel over 73 miles in one day, you still have to account for the other 5%. You may have your car parked in your garage for 16 hours 95% of the time, but sometimes you go out late and need to leave early in the morning.

This kind of thing is already taken into account once an infrastructure is built. The Tesla ability to drive to a different location and replace its batteries in a station, I think S2baker was the one who linked to the battery pack being replaced. In less time than it takes to fill the same car with gas.

It's like a "hard fuel" gas stations. Several packs are charging in these stations and you stop and change it and drive on.

Other future possibilities

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/12/tech/solar-powered-roads-coming-highway/

I still don't get how the carbon battery charges
in 12 min, can somebody explain how that's
possible?

Speaking of battery pack exchange stations, I expect new laws will be written for the profit side of it. Unlike a gas station, a charge pack could be left with various states of power left. If the stations figure out how to profit from that will they share with the public or just take it? (kind of like how the casino industry decided money left too long on a TITO ticket was theirs).

I expect if that occurs and the public notices there will be some legislation.