Consistency is perhaps the most unappreciated of attributes. Variety is, of course, the spice of life; while beauty is its own form of genius. And speed, well, it kills, doesn’t it? But reliability? Not a virtue that gets lauded nearly so passionately, “steady and solid” not exactly the stuff that sees its way into the script of a Jennifer Lopez rom-com with Matthew McConaughey (or that sees her stay married to Ben Affleck, for that matter).
On the other hand, as anyone who’s actually been married for 60 years can attest, consistency is the only thing that matters over the long haul. The same need for dependability applies equally well to anyone who has ever, for instance, bought a German luxury sedan out of warranty. Ditto if you’ve ever tried — probably to little avail — to nurse a Dodge Caravan transmission past 100,000 kilometres. And, while I do hate to kick a good car company when it’s down, is there anything more desperate than the poor Jaguar owner who really believes their XJ-S will only be in the shop for a few days this time?
If I am reading Euan McTurk — the consultant battery electrochemist who starred in our latest Driving into the Future panel — right, you can now add range anxiety and battery charging to the list of things for which consistency is the most enviable of virtues. To wit—
One of the myths surrounding electric vehicles is that big batteries are the Prozac that assuages all range anxiety. More kilowatt-hours means more driving, goes this most simple of battery calculus, and, if your fancy new plug-in can go 500 kilometres on a “tank,” well, then, problem solved, right? No more range anxiety!
Not quite.
As it turns out, if you’ve ever actually done much long-distance EV-ing, much more important than how far you can drive in one shot is how fast you can recharge and get back on the road. And that, says McTurk, is all about consistency.
You see, while automakers spend a lot of time boasting how much peak charging power their latest high-voltage batteries can handle, what they’re a little more shy — OK, a whole lot more shy — about telling you is that their batteries can’t actually handle those big numbers for very long.
So, for instance, Toyota’s BZ4X, which has a reputation for slow charging, can actually hit a respectable 135 kilowatts if charged at a suitable charging point. The real problem is it can only hold that modest peak for about 20% of its charging cycle, after which there’s a steady decline, and, by the time it hits 80% state-of-charge (SoC), its battery is barely taking in 35 kilowatts. Add it all up, and it’s not its lack of peak charging power that sees it averaging a paltry 69.9 kW, but the fact it can’t hold its peak speed consistently.
An even more dramatic example of inconsistency is Tesla’s claim of 250-kW Supercharger charging. EVKX.net — the source of all Motor Mouth’s battery-charging specifications — says that, while, yes, a Model 3 Long Range can hit 250 kW for a short time, what Tesla isn’t telling you is that it can only handle that much power for about 5% of its entire charging cycle, after which the charging rate plummets like a stone.
In fact, in a 10%-to-80% charging cycle, the Tesla only averages about 95 kW and, by the time you hit 90% State of Charge, it’s barely taking in 30 kW. If you’re looking for an ICE analogy, imagine pulling up to an Ontario OnRoute gas pump only to find that while the high-test flows freely when you start filling up your Ford F-150 crew cab, by the time the gas gauge reads a quarter full, that hose has turned into one of those clogged paper straws that Donald Trump seems to hate so much, barely a dribble reaching the tank.
Everything you need to know about EV charging
That’s where consistency pays big dividends, says the founder of Plug Life Consulting. The trick to really speedy recharging, he says, is “sustaining that charging rate for much longer in that charging session.” As an example, McTurk lauds Hyundai’s Ioniq 5, which, while peaking at roughly the same 250 kW as the Model 3, can maintain more than 200 kW for almost 60% of its charging cycle. Do all the math — accurately this time — and though its peak is at roughly the same wattage as the Tesla, the Ioniq 5’s 171.8-kW average over the 10%-to-80% cycle is almost double the Model 3’s. Like marriage and Japanese-car ownership, consistency really does dividends in EV charging.
But things will soon get even better, says McTurk. By way of example, he points to a recent test by Polestar using a new battery from Israeli start-up StoreDot (whose CEO, Doron Myersdor, you might remember was a guest in Driving into the Future’s third season). StoreDot’s Extremely Fast Charging (XFC) battery is capable of maintaining 300-plus-kilowatt charging all the way from 10% to 80% state of charge. In fact, in what would seem a world’s first, Polestar claims that, in testing, the prototype actually increased its charging power through its entire charging cycle, starting at 310 kW at 10% SoC; and rising to 370 kW as it passed 80% state of charge.
What’s happening here, says McTurk — and readers, if I get the interpretation of what he told me wrong, that’s entirely on me — in this case, the charging station’s cable was not able to handle as much amperage as StoreDot’s silicon-rich anodes could, and so, to keep pumping all those amps in as the battery reached full charge, the voltage rose. The result? More kilowatts.
Even if I am over-simplifying what was happening, it doesn’t change the fact the Polestar prototype is the only electric vehicle I am aware of that can increase its charging speed all the way to 80% state of charge. And that it really did recharge 70% of its 77 kilowatt hours in less than 10 minutes, which, in Polestar’s words, is “is much closer to what you would experience when filling a car with fuel.”
In other words, the secret to eliminating range anxiety is not how fast you can charge, but how consistently you can charge fast.
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