As covered by Greentech Media: Last week, the U.S. government pledged to push the electric-vehicle industry toward charging a car in less than 10 minutes. Now, that sounds like a long time.
In Switzerland, a new line of buses can be topped off in a few seconds and fully charged in minutes. ABB received a commercial order from transit bus operator Tosa for its 15-second, 600-kilowatt flash charge technology, which will be installed along the bus route 23, between suburban Geneva and the airport. The project has been in pilots for the past few years.
The fully electric buses roll into bus stops as they usually would, but then a contact on top of the bus rises to meet an overhead charger. Thirteen of 50 stops have the charging technology. The flash charger delivers up to 600 kilowatts for 15 seconds. At the bus depot, the chargers fill up the bus in three to five minutes using 200 kilowatts.
The charge stations use supercapacitors, also known as ultracapacitors, which can store and release a lot of energy almost instantaneously, although they do not have the energy storage density of batteries. Continue reading from Greentech Media, here.
Considering electric buses in your own fleet, and want to understand what this would do to your energy efficiency? Learn more about electric vehicle infrastructure deployment planning. Or, get more on electric vehicles here.