posted in Technology
EV Charging Doesn't Need to Be as Fast as Gas, Ionna CEO Says
www.thedrive.com/news/ev-charging-doesnt-need-to-be-as-fast-as-gas-ionna-ceo-says
Replying to @Mustachius_Grumpius@thelemmy.club
Lets say you have a 300mi range EV. that sounds great, until you realize you can’t actually use it all.
We like to save the bottom 20% for emergencies and battery longevity, and fast charging is too slow above 80% to be worth it, so effectively, on a road trip. only the 20%-80% range is usable. Your 300mi+ range just turned into 180mi of usable range. And then factor in ~10% battery degradation over time, or range reduction in winter conditions, and you could easily have as little as 150mi of actual usable range between charging stops. And that’s assuming the charging stations are perfectly spaced apart.
That’s only a little more than 2 hours at highway speeds. And that’s not along time to be driving, even for a single person. In gas cars, we will regularly do 3-4 hours without stopping at all. And if we do stop for a break, it’s rarely at gas stations or places with charging stations. Those are typically awful places to spend the limited amount of time you have on a trip.
In practice, the charging interval is far, far less than the ideal 300mi and far more frequent.
Replying to @hcbxzz@lemmy.world
Refusing to use the bottom 20% of your 300 mile pack is astonishing to me.
I understand having some buffer in case you need to divert to an alternate charging location but most people in most parts of the US don’t live or travel places where charging stations are THAT far apart.
And there is no danger to battery health with driving down to 5% or lower state of charge. You’re SUPPOSED to go that low on long trips. The only potential impact to battery health is if you leave it parked at a super low or super high state of charge, and even then doing so for a day or two on rare occasions is not gonna be a problem. Furthermore most EVs already lock off a small portion of the pack’s range specifically for battery longetivity so unless you’re in a Tesla or are under a recall or something you shouldn’t worry about this so much that you refuse to use the last twenty percent
Use your whole battery! It’s there for you to
Replying to @noxypaws@pawb.social
Not that crazy. 20% of 300mi is ~60mi which is slightly more than when the low fuel gauge lights up on most gas cars. And most people refuel gas cars long before that light comes up, when there’s ~100mi of range left. Why is such behavior suddenly so crazy when you translate that to EVs? I’ll grant you that it’s unnecessary in most situations, but why is being a little more cautious than others about preventing a very inconvenient situation warrant the word “astonishing”?
Only last winter I was stuck in a snow storm due to traffic and road conditions in my EV. That route took an extra 10% off my battery than calculated due to running the heater. 10% is the bare minimum margin of safety I will ever accept, and I will not feel comfortable at all having only 10% buffer.
Also consider a gas car can be refueled with a can in desperate times, allowing you to get to the next gas station. EVs have no such equivalent. Best case, you’re waiting for a tow. Running out of fuel in a gas car is inconvenient. Running out of battery with an EV is devastating. Considering the difference in consequences, it is well worth the extra caution.