EV power bank for charging with no off-street parking
Discussion
We only have on-street parking round here so an EV is impractical as there would be cables lying all across the pavement. But is there a way of making a power bank similar to mobile phones, where the bank is charged inside the house, then transferred to the car to discharge into the car's battery? Or would that be prohibitively expensive/heavy?
skilly1 said:
f
k's sake, if only I'd had that idea ten years ago. 
It still plugs in outside the car so you wouldn't want to leave it on the street unattended, although I guess you could route it through an ajar window in a locked car.
We'd love an EV for the next car but at the moment we have no way of charging it unless we wire it into the lamp post. Maybe things will have changed by the time the current car dies.
That unit looks pretty good for keeping in the car as a 'just in case' type solution (although very expensive). But it weighs 25kg ish so you're unlikely to want to have to move it very often even if it is on wheels. And even then it's only giving you 20 odd miles worth of juice. I don't think it would be a great option to rely on daily. I think you'd face the same issue with any powerbank type solution. The sheer weight of batteries needed to give a meaningful charge is going to hugely reduce how practical they are.
Edited by Gad-Westy on Tuesday 23 November 10:57
Gad-Westy said:
it's only giving you 20 odd miles worth of juice
Ah okay I missed that bit.I remember reading years ago about switchable batteries that you would exchange at a charging station, rather than having to sit there and charge up your own, I'm assuming that went nowhere? Probably lots of reasons why you wouldn't want to keep replacing your batteries with some of unknown origin.
ScotHill said:
Ah okay I missed that bit.
I remember reading years ago about switchable batteries that you would exchange at a charging station, rather than having to sit there and charge up your own, I'm assuming that went nowhere? Probably lots of reasons why you wouldn't want to keep replacing your batteries with some of unknown origin.
Tesla had a trial battery swap station open for IIRC about a year, eventually closed it citing to low usage. Nio is having another go at it just now. I remember reading years ago about switchable batteries that you would exchange at a charging station, rather than having to sit there and charge up your own, I'm assuming that went nowhere? Probably lots of reasons why you wouldn't want to keep replacing your batteries with some of unknown origin.
It seems like a great idea but the reality is it’s big expensive machinery with complex logistics and business model problems - all to save only about 30 minutes, on only the very longest of journeys which are rare, and even then only for those who are willing to pay extra for the privilege. And who happen to be passing a location where you’ve installed a swap station. The business case just doesn’t stack up.
Venturist said:
ScotHill said:
Ah okay I missed that bit.
I remember reading years ago about switchable batteries that you would exchange at a charging station, rather than having to sit there and charge up your own, I'm assuming that went nowhere? Probably lots of reasons why you wouldn't want to keep replacing your batteries with some of unknown origin.
Tesla had a trial battery swap station open for IIRC about a year, eventually closed it citing to low usage. Nio is having another go at it just now. I remember reading years ago about switchable batteries that you would exchange at a charging station, rather than having to sit there and charge up your own, I'm assuming that went nowhere? Probably lots of reasons why you wouldn't want to keep replacing your batteries with some of unknown origin.
It seems like a great idea but the reality is it’s big expensive machinery with complex logistics and business model problems - all to save only about 30 minutes, on only the very longest of journeys which are rare, and even then only for those who are willing to pay extra for the privilege. And who happen to be passing a location where you’ve installed a swap station. The business case just doesn’t stack up.
To some extent it depends if you need to fully charge it in one go. A car battery pack weighs several hundred kilos, while you could possibly save some structural weight it would still need to be 10-20% higher capacity than the car due to losses and would likely need to be in its own self propelled carrier.
ruggedscotty said:
If they could get a battery bank to charge from the mains over say 20 hours,,,, then it can charge your car in an hour ?
20 hours charge being transferred over quicker than over a long duration charge ?
wonder if this would be a solution - giving the option to fast charge the car?
Sounds feasible but it sounds like the OP's issue is not being able to plug directly into anything fixed to the house because no OSP and not wanting cables across the pavement. So that solution probably wouldn't help I'd guess. 20 hours charge being transferred over quicker than over a long duration charge ?
wonder if this would be a solution - giving the option to fast charge the car?
Gad-Westy said:
ruggedscotty said:
If they could get a battery bank to charge from the mains over say 20 hours,,,, then it can charge your car in an hour ?
20 hours charge being transferred over quicker than over a long duration charge ?
wonder if this would be a solution - giving the option to fast charge the car?
Sounds feasible but it sounds like the OP's issue is not being able to plug directly into anything fixed to the house because no OSP and not wanting cables across the pavement. So that solution probably wouldn't help I'd guess. 20 hours charge being transferred over quicker than over a long duration charge ?
wonder if this would be a solution - giving the option to fast charge the car?
Baldchap said:
We don't have petrol stations at our homes and we manage. Many EVs will charge to 80% in 20 minutes.
Just use public chargers is the easy answer.
There aren't that many chargers around that can charge that rapidly (at least for not a large battery BEV) and those that do exist are expensive to use and (anecdotally I admit) unreliable. Unless I wanted a Tesla and there was a supercharger network conveniently near home, there is no way I'd enter into EV ownership without means to charge myself the vast majority of the time. At least not at present. The public network is still a bit of a mess, but hopefully improving.Just use public chargers is the easy answer.
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