Tesla’s next Supercharger could charge electric cars in mere seconds

[Hamartia Antidote]

http://inhabitat.com/elon-musk-implies-supercharger-v3-could-charge-teslas-in-mere-seconds/

When it comes to electric vehicles becoming the norm, many people scoff at the idea of having to plug in their cars and wait around for the batteries to recharge. But Tesla CEO Elon Musk may have a solution in the form of a next-gen Supercharger capable of recharging a Tesla vehicle battery in mere seconds. Over the weekend, Musk hinted (on Twitter, of course) that the Supercharger V3 would serve up at least 350 kW, which is more than twice the output of current Superchargers on the Tesla network.

The teasing began when another Twitter user asked Tesla‘s head idea man when solar panels would be installed on the existing Supercharger stations, to which Musk said, “There are some installed already, but full rollout really needs Supercharger V3 and Powerpack V2, plus SolarCity. Pieces now in place.” When Electrek writer Fred Lambert wondered whether the V3 chargers would hit the 350 kW mark, Musk laughed it off, implying he may have something even more powerful in mind. “A mere 350 kW … what are you referring to, a children’s toy?” Musk tweeted in response.

Tesla’s current Superchargers are already the fastest electric car battery-charging units on the planet, capable of recharging a car battery in minutes rather than hours, but there is always room for improvement. The current Superchargers top out at 150 kW, so if V3 can offer up 350 kW (or more, as Musk may have been suggesting), Tesla drivers won’t have to wait around while their car batteries get juiced up. Instead, the new Superchargers could potentially be capable of charging the batteries in just a few seconds, a practice recently named “flash charging.” If such charging speeds could be obtained without sacrificing performance, Tesla drivers will be able to recoup tons of time, especially on long-distance journeys.

And, if the Supercharger V3 is installed at stations across the US, a cross-country Tesla road trip will be even faster. Given how eager some Tesla drivers are to set records, we bet it will only take a few days after the install until someone beats the current coast-to-coast record.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

https://electrek.co/2017/01/05/chargepoint-tesla-supercharger-handle/

Chargepoint mysteriously shows a Tesla handle in their own charger in new promo video

Today, Chargepoint announced a new 400kW charging capabilities that they say would add 100 miles of range per 15 minutes of charge. While high-end Tesla’s can get that kind of mileage gains (and more) with current 145kW chargers, this could be a big boon for the industry if it were applied to trucks and busses, for instance where the 400kW = 100 miles in 15 minutes math works.

View image on Twitter

However, this morning Chargepoint published a YouTube video with something far more interesting for Tesla owners and prospective owners.

On Twitter, on which Chargepoint has been ‘creative’ with in the recent past, the company published the below YouTube video where at 30 seconds in you can clearly see a Tesla charging handle inserted into the charging port of Chargepoint station.

We’ve reached out to both Tesla and Chargepoint for more information on what this means and have yet to hear back. However we are expecting to meet with Chargepoint later today.

This could mean that Chargepoint is one of the Tesla patent users that Elon Musk alluded to last year when asked if anyone was using Tesla’s Open Sourced patents.

When discussing Telsa’s own upcoming new fast-charging stations, Elon Musk replied to our Frederic Lambert Tweet saying that 350kW was just the beginning saying “A mere 350 kW … what are you referring to, a children’s toy?”

The cable in the picture looks somewhat like the new Supercharging handles Tesla has rolled out but the cable is thinner. In Chargepoint’s press release this morning the company noted that it was using liquid cooled cables which if used like Tesla’s now concluded Mountain View charger could get that thin.

Perhaps less exciting but more likely: Chargepoint will integrate Tesla handles into their Level 2 AC charging stations so that owners don’t need to use the included adapter when charging at the more common Chargepoint stations.

We’ll update as we find out more.

Notice the Tesla handle charger in the video below at the 30-second mark:

 

[Ali Nawaz Qureshi]

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