VW's charging robot

[dxg]

I was wondering what people's thoughts on this:
https://youtu.be/Fk_j1m7ck0c
are?

Terminator musical cues aside, I totally get the point. With some slight reconfiguration in space layouts (probably dressed up as making every space a super-wide disabled space), this could convert existing car parks into charging stations. Imagine heading off to John Lewis after pressing the "charge me" button at the entry barrier...

But it adds yet another energy conversion step into the process, with all of its attendant losses. Not to mention the reduced parking density. I wonder how the benefit/efficiency equation is structured...

[dxg]

Looks like Samsung have their take on this concept, too, but with more complication...

https://youtu.be/VlP-9e9PxFc

[aestetix1]

What is the point though?

Tesla need them because they promised Full Self Driving cars that can do coast to coast without a driver, but for everyone else just do it yourself or pay someone minimum wage to do it. They can give the windscreen a wipe down while they are at it.

[kambites]

aestetix1 said:

What is the point though?

The point is that if someone is using the charger you want to use, you don't have to hang around and wait for them to finish before plugging your car in. You can simply program the charger to come to you next. Yes you could employ someone to do it, but that would probably work out more expensive in the long run, as would simply installing more chargers.

I think the problem with such a system would be genericising it to work with all sorts of different models of car. If it's manufacturer specific it will never be commercially viable.

Edited by kambites on Tuesday 29th December 10:09

[Smiljan]

VW said:

Volkswagen Group Components gives us a first glimpse of the real prototypes
This is one of the visionary charging concepts that Volkswagen hopes will expand the charging infrastructure over the next few years. Its task: fully autonomous charging of vehicles in restricted parking areas, like underground car parks.

The charging robot – started via an app or Car-to-X communication – operates totally autonomously. It independently steers the vehicle to be charged and communicates with it: from opening the charging socket flap to connecting the plug and decoupling it. The entire charging process takes place without any human involvement whatsoever. To charge several vehicles at the same time, the mobile robot moves a trailer, essentially a mobile energy storage unit, to the vehicle, connects it up and then uses this energy storage unit to charge the battery of the electric vehicle.

The energy storage unit stays with the vehicle during the charging process. In the meantime, the robot charges other electric vehicles. Once the charging service has ended, the robot independently collects the mobile energy storage unit and takes it back to the central charging station

Visionary charging concept. Visionary concept like Robotaxi....

[Teddy Lop]

Seems like a lot of tech and faff, carting batteries around like that.

Would have thought the first step into self driving would be a valet mode where you jump out and the car goes off and plugs itself in. Actually has potential to be more space efficient, as autonomous cars could all box each other in and shuffle when requested.

Actually don't tesla already have something like this?

[Smiljan]

Teddy Lop said:

Actually don't tesla already have something like this?

No

[dxg]

Teddy Lop said:

Seems like a lot of tech and faff, carting batteries around like that.

Would have thought the first step into self driving would be a valet mode where you jump out and the car goes off and plugs itself in. Actually has potential to be more space efficient, as autonomous cars could all box each other in and shuffle when requested.

Actually don't tesla already have something like this?

But then you would need a charging point per space.

This approach strikes me as a quick, cheap way of rolling out infrastructure. It wouldn't take much effort to retrofit this to existing parking structures.

Your demand modelling would have to predict how many occupied spaces are likely to be demanding charging at the same time. Err on the low side and add more mobile batteries (perhaps not even robots) as demand within a given structure grows...

Hell, if you stagger the the recharging of the mobile batteries (I wonder what they hold), you could even limit the capacity of the size of the electricity supply to the charging station. That equation would trade off cost of supply against cost of batteries (to buffer supply load)...

Edited by dxg on Tuesday 29th December 10:22

[ecs]

Smiljan said:

Teddy Lop said:

Actually don't tesla already have something like this?

No

They did build a self plugging in plug a few years back though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMM0lRfX6YI

[Smiljan]

I hadn't forgotten the Tesla snake, they really don't have anything like the VW idea currently.

[pghstochaj]

dxg said:

But then you would need a charging point per space.

This approach strikes me as a quick, cheap way of rolling out infrastructure. It wouldn't take much effort to retrofit this to existing parking structures.

Your demand modelling would have to predict how many occupied spaces are likely to be demanding charging at the same time. Err on the low side and add more mobile batteries (perhaps not even robots) as demand within a given structure grows...

Hell, if you stagger the the recharging of the mobile batteries (I wonder what they hold), you could even limit the capacity of the size of the electricity supply to the charging station. That equation would trade off cost of supply against cost of batteries (to buffer supply load)...

Edited by dxg on Tuesday 29th December 10:22

Charging points aren’t expensive, nor is cabling. The infrastructure to power them can be but that’s just about capacity, the same issue as you would have with this “robot”.

To be honest, this is one of the most absurd things I have seen in the EV world. You add more batteries, more charging time, more complexity, more things to go wrong etc.

[rxe]

It’s going to be interesting how the economics of this pans out.

Most people, most of the time, will never use a public charger. They won’t need to because they will be full every morning. The only reason to use a public charger is if you are on a long journey, or you really can’t charge at home. Why would the owner of a multi-storey car park invest millions in high capacity infrastructure (or robots) when hardly anyone will use it?

[pghstochaj]

rxe said:

It’s going to be interesting how the economics of this pans out.

Most people, most of the time, will never use a public charger. They won’t need to because they will be full every morning. The only reason to use a public charger is if you are on a long journey, or you really can’t charge at home. Why would the owner of a multi-storey car park invest millions in high capacity infrastructure (or robots) when hardly anyone will use it?

I think you’re forgetting the many millions without a suitable location to charge. That problem has not gone away. However, I doubt the fix to that will be in people charging when nipping to the supermarket etc - it’s too unreliable a plan for “fuelling” your car. Lots of people around the country do not have drives, both affluent and not so affluent.

[kambites]

pghstochaj said:

I think you’re forgetting the many millions without a suitable location to charge. That problem has not gone away. However, I doubt the fix to that will be in people charging when nipping to the supermarket etc - it’s too unreliable a plan for “fuelling” your car. Lots of people around the country do not have drives, both affluent and not so affluent.

That problem will have to be solved, and as you say the solution isn't going to be charging in supermarkets or multi-story car parks. If we can't get to the point where 90+% of people can charge overnight, EVs just wont work as a general replacement for ICE. That's the problem with the government's 2030 plans; it would be perfectly possible to get low speed kerb-side charging installed throughout most of the country in the next ten years but it would require the government to spend significant amounts of money now, which they have no interest in doing.

Edited by kambites on Tuesday 29th December 18:46

[Throttle Body]

I actually think that VW is onto something here: how to charge cars which are parked on the street. Their solution is a robot which goes up and down the street plugging battery units into electric cars so that you don't have trailing cables. Once charged, or when someone wants to drive away, the robot comes along and removes the battery. This seems like a pretty good intermediate step until kerbside charging is installed everywhere.

[NMNeil]

The whole charging issue may be solved with inductive chargers.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2020/12/18/22178754/t...

[Throttle Body]

NMNeil said:

The whole charging issue may be solved with inductive chargers.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2020/12/18/22178754/t...

This might work in parking bays, but not for on-street parking.

[dvs_dave]

Not a terrible idea....direct battery DC to DC charging is actually pretty efficient, and very high power. So this could be a good option where the cost of running conventional charging infrastructure is uneconomic, and/or for temporary deployments where short-term demand surges need to be accommodated, such as for events, holiday/beach resorts etc.

I suppose the key is what is the maximum kWh demand rate each robot can service, how quickly it moves between vehicles, and recharging/exchanging its own battery pack?

[anonymous-user]

It's a novel idea!
But, as you questioned OP, how will it stack up in reality? I wonder how many robots they think will be needed per BEV in the parking lot.
I would think this robot idea would only suit new parking lots that are built to suit it, to offer the level surface and circulation space the robots would need to get around without impeding access to cars while it's charging and to allow the space for the charger robots to recharge themselves.
It might end up getting filed in the same drawer as robotaxis and self-driving cars, IMO.

[kambites]

Throttle Body said:

NMNeil said:

The whole charging issue may be solved with inductive chargers.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2020/12/18/22178754/t...

This might work in parking bays, but not for on-street parking.

The primary use-case for inductive charging (if any) will be standalone units in people's garages/drives to avoid them having to plug the car into the wall. If you want to bury them under the road's surface they'll get less efficient and MUCH more expensive than cabled chargers.

I'm pretty certain the solution to on-street charging is the rather unglamorous "install slow chargers every few meters along the edge of residential streets". Possibly (but not necessarily) combined with the introduction of assigned parking bays outside people's houses/flats.