Nissan develops new quick charger for electric vehicles
12 September 2011
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| New quick charger, standard specification. Click to enlarge. |
Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. revealed its new quick charger and plans to begin sales of the technology in November 2011 at Nissan parts companies throughout Japan. The newly-developed quick charging unit retains the high performance of the current quick charger manufactured by Nissan (earlier post), which is now on sale with a suggested retail price of ¥1.47 million yen including tax (US$19,000), but is nearly half the size (by volume).
The new charger unit’s smaller size will take up less space and enable easier installation. The unit will cost “significantly” less than ¥1 million (US$13,000), according to Nissan, while the base specification unit will cost only below one half the price of the current unit.
The lower price is enabled by the adoption of new electric circuit technology developed in cooperation with Nagaoka University of Technology and by harnessing technology used in Nissan manufacturing and R&D, Nissan said.
Nissan aims to sell 5,000 of the new quick chargers by the end of fiscal year 2015 (March 2016) to contribute to the ongoing development of the EV quick charging infrastructure in Japan. The company plans to install the new charging units at an increasing number of its dealerships nationwide and introduce the new units at local government facilities and in locations that draw large numbers of customers in regions throughout Japan.
Nissan is also proactively seeking partner companies for sales. Preparations are also underway for future sales of the new quick charger in the US and in European markets.
Features of the new quick charger include:
Safety. The new unit can be used even in rainy weather, and offers many safety features, such as monitoring against a potential short circuit when the charging unit is interfacing with the EV, for safe charging.
Compatibility. It complies with CHAdeMO protocol and is compatible with Nissan EVs as well as EVs manufactured by other companies.
Responsive to various charging environments. To meet a variety of customer needs, Nissan has developed three specifications: base, standard and cold weather specifications.
| Specifications | ||||||
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| Base | Standard | Cold weather | ||||
| Rated input | 49 kW 3-AC200V | |||||
| Output voltage | Maximum DC500V | |||||
| Output current | Maximum DC125A | |||||
| EV connector | JEVS G 105-1993* compliant | |||||
| Height/width/depth (mm) | 1,840x380x665 | |||||
| Main specification |
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| * JEVS G105-1993: The Japan Automotive Research Institute (JARI) has created a new organization for EV technology standardization, the Japan Electric Vehicle Association Standard (JEVS). G 105-1993 is the connector to be used for EV quick charging systems. | ||||||
With these very low prices for fast chargers Nissan will blow away the competition once they get their distribution up and running. Independent developers and producers of fast chargers like GE or Siemens, does not have as strong an incentive to develop and sell inexpensive fast chargers as Nissan has. Each time Nissan sell a fast charger it will have a positive effect on the demand for their electric vehicles. So Nissan has an incentive to fast track the development of fast chargers and even sell them with a loss as it can make up for the money by selling more battery electric cars. GE and Siemens cannot do that in the same degree although they do have increasing businesses selling parts for battery electric vehicles.
I expect Nissan to keep up the quick development of these fast chargers. They will get smaller, faster charging, cheaper and more durable in the coming years. To see Nissan make a 50% reduction in the price and the size of these chargers in just 12 months is simply amazing.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 12 September 2011 at 07:24 AM
Yes....if batteries and EVs could progress at the same rate, it would be interesting to see what would be on the market place.
Posted by: HarveyD | 12 September 2011 at 07:39 AM
Clean Technia has a nice article today about the "virtuous circle" of EVs, rooftop solar and smart metering all coming together.
In cooperation with San Diego Gas and Electric homeowners can put panels on the roof, sell the daytime electricity to SDG&E and then buy back cheap off-peak power for charging.
The smart meter makes the transactions possible.
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/09/12/electric-vehicles-smart-grid-residential-solar-power-a-virtuous-circle-emerges/
Get a few of these rapid charger spread around the area and range anxiety will dissipate.
Posted by: Bob Wallace | 12 September 2011 at 10:28 AM
~$35,000 X 10,100 units sold( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf ) = $350 million and that was months ago after a tsunami.
Cutting the quick charger price in half will only improve sales.
Posted by: kelly | 12 September 2011 at 10:37 AM
I don’t think range anxiety will disappear (for most people at least) until you can get a battery EV that can charge at 90kW or about 100 miles in 15 minutes. I hope Nissan will make such a Leaf available plus the 90kW charger in time for the second generation Leaf that should debut around 2016.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 12 September 2011 at 11:38 AM
Quick Charging is nice to have but most people will still charge at home 90%+ of the time.. but it will lower the demand (and resulting high cost) of electric vehicles with huge batteries... otherwise it will be a race between manufacturers for ever larger battery packs.
Henrik, range anxiety has been exaggerated, at least with the current generation of educated owners.
Posted by: Herm | 12 September 2011 at 03:13 PM
Until EVs get something more like a 200 mile range and can be ~80% refilled in ~20 minutes I don't think they will be purchased by those who take long trips with any frequency.
But if there are some rapid charge points strung along freeways and around cities then people are not going to fear going out for the day and getting stuck.
They are also not going to hesitate buying an 100 mile range EV because they might have to move a few hundred miles some day and be faced with the option of having to sell or ship their car.
SF to Seattle, it could be done in hops. Not what one would want to do often, but possible.
People may never use rapid chargers, but unless they are there some are going to hold back purchasing an EV.
Posted by: Bob Wallace | 12 September 2011 at 05:57 PM
Range anxiety disappears if the road is wired to transmit power to the car. That sort of thing could allow battery size to be cut in half or more (doubling the number of vehicles per kWh of battery plant production), and also retrofit E-wheels to the rear of FWD cars for electric assist. All of this would displace petroleum.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 12 September 2011 at 07:11 PM
There is a very informative press event with Nissan where they report that they expect to cut the price of their 50kW charger to 3000 to 4000 USD. Wow!
To quote: “Now, there are other things we can do. We have a program right now putting in-house built quick chargers. What does that do? Well, that for example reduces the price point of a quick charger. Today, a quick charger is probably $40,000-$50,000. We're doing it in-house and think we can get it down to $3,000-$4,000. It changes the paradigm completely. It introduces some competition outside, but also allows you to go to the governments and say: 'We can donate or sell you some quick chargers but you have to be committed to having the parking space connecting to the electrical supply.' It allows us to be a little bit more aggressive in our relationships with governments, utilities, telecommunication companies, etc.”
http://www.nissan-global.com/EN/REPORTS/2011/09/110905.html
Posted by: Account Deleted | 13 September 2011 at 01:53 AM
So what is the business case for a 50kW quick charger?
Assume an outdoor version can be made for 5000 USD and installation cost adds another 10000 USD so total cost is 15000 USD for an installed charger.
One charger should be able to charge 8 cars per day with 20 kWh each. That is 4 hours of effective charger use per day. The charger could bill drivers not for electricity but for the time you are connected to the fast charger so that you have an incentive to unplug and move your car as soon as your charge is finished.
Assume you are billed 20 cents per minute of charging that gives 6 USD for 30 minutes or 20 kWh costing 30 cents each. If the owner of the charger pays the utility 10 cents per kWh the quick charger can make a profit of 11680 USD per year (=(0.3-0.1)*20*8*365). Even assuming a high 3000 USD per year in maintenance the charger can pay for its installation and maintenance in about 2 years time.
On top of that chargers will be located at the parking lots of shopping malls and these malls risk losing customers if they don’t invest in fast chargers so I say the EV infrastructure may come very rapidly once Nissan can do the charger for 15000 USD installed.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 13 September 2011 at 02:22 AM
Wireless, fixed and on-the-move (at normal driving speed) charging systems will progressively move in, at home, in public parking and on many streets, roads and highways by 2020 or shortly thereafter.
On very long high speed trips, one may have to slow down when you are draining more power than the on-the-move charging system can supply, but that could be a way to keep drivers at a reasonable speed.
Range anxiety and having to recharge your EV may become history.
Posted by: HarveyD | 13 September 2011 at 12:06 PM
Many people in the EV and battery industries are forecasting double range EVs in the next few years. Give people 200 miles of range and the need for on-the-move charging will likely not be adequate to pay for the infrastructure. Rapid chargers like the above along our highways will do the job for less money.
Wireless charging while parked may be the way of the future but there is a power loss with wireless. Perhaps if the receiver can be brought into closer contact with the sending unit wireless might make more sense. No reason why that couldn't be cut to almost no distance with a descending receiver.
We could also see robotic chargers which auto-plug into an EV which would create no power loss.
Posted by: Bob Wallace | 15 September 2011 at 11:30 AM
The charger issue is a red herring.
Chargers are neither labor, process or material intensive.
Unlike batteries they only need mass demand and mass production to be cheap.
And the vanilla Prius needs no low cost charger to boost sales.
The EV awaits lower cost batteries.
Posted by: ToppaTom | 19 September 2011 at 09:00 PM