SAE Quick Charge Connector Go

[scottf200]

Honestly, the battery issue is all over the place. I have seen so experts state that it will have absolutely no impact on the battery whatsoever. I have also seen the opposite. Right now it is an unknown.

I see level 3 charging as a mobility enhancer. What California is doing will allow cars the opportunity to safely travel outside of their normal commuting pattern. The price to charge is reasonable, with the caveat that it isnt used daily.

Check out the state of L3 charging in IL (30 minute session charging or per minute):

Video:


Article:field-trial-level-three-quick-charging-two-evs.html
http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2...g-two-evs.html

[CarZin]

Good video. Doesnt change my opinion on the matter. The billing rate is obviously administrative, and can be fixed. The charge rate is defnitely based on the car and battery packs and its thermal management (or in the Leaf's case, lack of thermal management).

As I have stated, the Level 3 chargers will be good, as stated in the video, as a convienence, and not a mode for everyday charging. If you need to go 65 miles each way for something out of the ordinary, a $7 charge to make sure you make it home is reasonable.

[DonC]

As I have stated, the Level 3 chargers will be good, as stated in the video, as a convienence, and not a mode for everyday charging. If you need to go 65 miles each way for something out of the ordinary, a $7 charge to make sure you make it home is reasonable.

The problem is that $7/charge is NEVER going to remotely cover the cost. Let's just do some back of the napkin calculations. Let's start on the cost side. Say by a miracle that NRG installs 200 chargers for $50M (I'm laughing already). Assume that the interest and the depreciation on the equipment is an unrealistically low $5M a year. Additionally, the monthly demand charge for each charger will be $1600. So demand charges a year will equal $3,840,000. We'll just skip the maintenance costs and the costs of the electricity and rent on land and everything else. Those costs will be substantial but we can skip them.

Now let's look at how many times a Leaf owner would use these chargers. Let's say there are 30,000 Leaf owners on the road. (Crazy high number but we're trying to be uber-optimistic). Say on average each Leaf uses a fast charger twice a year, so we have 60,000 charges.

To figure how much each charge would cost simply divide the yearly cost of the chargers -- $8,840,000 -- by 60,000 charges. You get $147/charge. At $7 a charge you're short a mere $140! More realistic assumptions just makes it more and more ridiculous.

Can you explain how this is supposed to work? My guess is that NRG is not stupid and it has no intention of installing these chargers and that they're angling to put in a network of J1772 chargers, which have different economics. I'd also guess that the settlement has some outs using "best efforts" language and that NRG's "best efforts" will result in very few installed DC chargers. And with one or two exceptions those that are installed won't be operating for very long.

I agree with you that DC charging won't have an adverse impact on vehicles with a DC charger. The problem isn't the battery it's the economics of providing fast charging.