Australian-made ‘fast charger’ slashes EV charging time

Australian-designed EV-charging technology has slashed the time it takes to recharge an electric vehicle, achieving as much as 80 per cent battery capacity in under 30 minutes.

Queensland-based EV systems manufacturer Tritium, which evolved from an interest in providing solar racing powertrain solutions, launched its Veefil charging system in Brisbane on Wednesday – a technology it has realised with the help of a $1.15 million Early Stage Commercialisation grant through Commercialisation Australia.

On a website dedicated to the technology, the company says its Veefil fast charger can charge an electric vehicle 20 times faster than plugging it into the wall at home, and that just 10 minutes of charging will give EV drivers 50km of range.

“Reducing the charge time of an electric vehicle from eight hours to less than an hour is a game changer and will be a major boost for the electric car industry,” said parliamentary secretary for Climate Change, Industry and Innovation, Yvette D’Ath, speaking at the launch.

Tritium says the Veefil could be rolled out to hotels, carparks, airports and shopping centres, where easy and fast turnaround times on charging would be at a premium.

Designed for indoor and outdoor use – and compact enough to fit in most locations without too much hassle – it is also suitable to be installed in private household garages. It supports both major DC fast charging standards used by EV manufacturers.

“With all indications that demand for electric cars will grow significantly over the next decade, this places Tritium – a Brisbane-based manufacturer – in a prime position to capitalise on that growth,” said D’Ath.

Comments

10 responses to “Australian-made ‘fast charger’ slashes EV charging time”

  1. Robin Pomfret Avatar

    Sounds to good to be true, no mention of price? Will be a good boost to the Ev industry when it is taken up by retailers and other interested company’s. It is also suitable to be installed in private household garages, can it be hooked up to off peak power charging ?

    1. Peter Campbell Avatar
      Peter Campbell

      As one who has been driving a DIY converted electric car for over 4 years, I can say that fast charging is not needed on off-peak. With time of use metering you can usually choose to charge at off peak rates overnight while you sleep but the charge does not need to be fast and the car will be full when you wake up.
      Off-peak is cheaper obviously, which is nice, but the fuel cost of my electric car is cheap anyway on the ordinary tariff. Even paying the premium for GreenPower, it is cheaper to run than any petrol car I could buy.
      When you might want faster charging will not be off-peak so you would pay a higher rate. During the day, on a weekend, doing multiple trips you might want to charge more quickly than from an ordinary 10 or 15A outlet but I don’t often find myself limited by charging from a 15A outlet. An hour or two of charging might not always get me full but I would rarely be near empty from the previous trip, don’t need to be full for the next trip and a useful top up is obtained with plain old slow charging. State of charge of the battery is much more accurately metered than a petrol car’s fuel gauge so you always know where you are at.
      Where fast charging would be useful is 1) for long trips along the highways. For now my car is strictly the town car with another, petrol car used for long trips. 2) commercial uses in and out of depots eg. high milage taxis returning for short times to taxi ranks with fast chargers.

      1. Robin Pomfret Avatar

        Thank you for that information Peter that’s good to know.

      2. Miles Harding Avatar
        Miles Harding

        Cheers Peter,
        Well said!

  2. tonyk Avatar
    tonyk

    Let’s say you have to get 50K of range from a Nissan Leaf. Will need 12-15kwhrs.
    The faster you charge the more the losses in the battery and inverters etc.

    In 10 min means charge power is 90-100 kw, If you put 5 or 6 of these together means you need half a megawatt of infrastructure. Not available at the local shops. Or petrol station either.

    Means new transformers, lines in the street, serious cables etc.
    This all very expensive. Will the punters pay?

    1. Miles Harding Avatar
      Miles Harding

      The punters don’t need this, it’s only the motoring press that are fixated on 500km range and a 5 minute recharge, just like a petrol station.

      One of the features of an EV is that it can charge from an ordinary household circuit at night or while at work. You just have to remember to plug it in regularly. Fast chargers are for highways and fleet operators. I haven’t been to a petrol station in ages!

      Obviously, street parkers will have a problem, there are solutions, maybe a fast charge station is one.

      We should consider the EV to be an ideal urban vehicle and use a hydrocarbon fueled one for road trips. it is not necessary to completely replace liquid fuels, only to reduce their use to a sustainable level.

  3. Louise Avatar
    Louise

    The future of electric vehicle charging is wireless charging while you drive on the road.

    To clarify, the car would draw the entire energy needed to move the car, from the road, while at the same recharging the battery if the battery is not at full capacity.

    Canadian head quartered company Bombadier is testing wireless conductive charging technology in Germany and they have it working with all sorts of vehicles, from small cars to trains with 6 electric locomotives with 11000 horse powers each pulling a train.

    Therefore, if anyone whats to claim that electric transport would only work with electrically assisted push bikes and under-powered golf buggies, s/he might want to contact Bombadier.

    The conductive chargers can be build under the road surface for new road construction or above, on the surface for existing roads as a retro fit.

    Still experimental but it works already.

    Then you only need to electrify Australia’s National Highway System and fossil fuels can be completely eliminated for road transport.

    Good for the general population but bad for Australia’s biggest industrial polluters.

    My daily travel is 37 km a day.
    A PHEV would mean that I could travel 99% of the time on pure electric.
    I will be buying a PHEV towards the end of next year.

  4. Peter Smith Avatar
    Peter Smith

    What type of battery is it compatible with? Would it fry lithium cells? Boeing found them to be more sensitive than they had expected.

    1. Miles Harding Avatar
      Miles Harding

      It won’t fry the battery.
      Fast chargers communicate with the vehicle and only give what the vehicle can accept.
      Currently, manufacturers warn that fast chargers will damage the battery if used too frequently.

  5. Louise Avatar
    Louise

    Electric cars will remain a niche market product until car companies decide to include a wireless conductive charging pad with every EV car sale, that plugs into standard household electricity sockets without the need for any modifications to make it work.

    Then, all you have to do is park your car over a charging pad and everything is taken care of by the software controlling the equipment.

    Mobile phones would never have taken off, if we would need to plug the phone into mobile phone towers just to keep the phone running.

    Some times I think that the scientists who invent new technologies solely focus on the technological aspects and the benefits of the technology/ies but neglect to investigate consumer behaviour and expectations.

    Playing around with cables is great if you are an electrician!

    I am not an electrician, I will not get drawn into even considering using a cable to charge an EV.

    In my case, an EV’s charge would be more than enough to cover my daily driving needs and I do not have any need for a fast charger, since my car is parked most of the time and standard household electricity is more than enough to re-charge a car over night or while parked at work.

    With conductive wireless EV charging, there would be zero waiting time required, at least in my case, as I would not need to wait for the car to recharge in order to be able to drive as the battery would last for all my daily driving needs without a recharge.

    After a day at the office, I would just drive home, park my car over the wireless charger and in the morning when a go to work the car is already fully recharged without me have to spend extra time getting the car replenished.

    Thus an electric car would make less demands on my time than a petrol or diesel car as I would not need to spend time going to a petrol station and filling her up.

    I am not sure if the car industry really does want electric cars because if they would, they would make them so that people would actually want to buy them.

    Here is a question:

    Which of the following two items lasts longer and needs less maintenance both in terms of time demands and dollar amounts?

    A kitchen fridge or a combustion engine equipped car?

    The answer is that a combustion engine equipped car requires more maintenance and thus channels more money into the pockets of the car industry.

    There is a financial incentive for the car industry to do everything they can to delay the re-emergence of the electric car.

    .

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