America First 1.2 Megawatt Charging Station
Hyundai have just invested hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars into their hydrogen trucking fleet that has been deployed in California.
But at the same time, seeing fast charging that can charge trucks incredibly quickly, making these hydrogen trucks, well, maybe a little bit obsolete.
What EV has opened its first megawatt charges? And they’re not just one megawatt, they’re more than one megawatt charging.
A lot of people complain about charging speeds they say vehicles charge too slowly.
Rise of High-Speed Charging
Now, there are vehicles in China that have been proven with CATLs, new lithium-ion phosphate batteries to charge in around 10 minutes using Now, like I said, LFP batteries that are affordable, charging at speeds of 550 to 600 kilowatt.
But it’s nothing in comparison to 1.2 megawatts, which would be double that speed. Well, about Out five times faster than a Tesla charges today.
First Megawatt Charging Stations
What EV has opened the first electric charging truck depot in the US to use the new megawatt charge system, capable of delivering 1.2 megawatts of power.
Currently, the highest speed charger available in the United States, along with solar and battery backup on-site, and a unique partially-grid blended setup.
EVs are Redefining the Trucking Industry
Really, what’s happening is what EV, they’re doing a similar thing to what Tesla has done a little bit.
By having their own battery on site, they can draw energy from the grid when it’s cheap.
So middle of the day, when there’s heaps of solar, sometimes actually energy prices can go to negative.
Wholesale energy prices, in fact, can be minus $40 sometimes, even more than that, because during the middle of the day, there’s often too much solar in many places around the world.
From Solar Farms to Grid Integration
So they basically draw energy out of the grid when it’s cheap and then sell it back to trucks, truck drivers, truck companies at much, much higher prices.
It’s a pretty good method. I mean, imagine you could suck gasoline out of the ground basically for free and resell it.
That’d be an awesome business model, but obviously, you can’t do that, fortunately.
this charging speed is quite incredible as well 1.2 megawatts could mean, in theory, you charge your semi if it had, say, a dual battery scenario, a little bit like GM’s Silverado EV, potentially charging it about 20 to 35 minutes from 10 to 80%.
This really is a peak into the future, the future which is electric trucks.
I’ve been saying for a while now, hydrogen trucks, I know there’s a lot of people who believe that they will be a thing, that they will take over the industry, but I think that ship has sailed.
The technology is just too good. 1.2 megawatt charging, semis like the Tesla SEMI that can do 500 miles, that’s today’s battery technology.
Not actually today’s, that’s actually yesterday’s. Today’s battery technology is much, much higher energy density than that.
Charge Depot in California
You’re getting newer, better batteries in those 46, 680 cells, which are pretty good, but there’s much, much higher energy density now, and that’ll be next generation.
A few years from now, you’re going to see semis getting 600, 700 miles of range capable of charging at these kinds of speeds. I think the future is pretty clear.
What EV says that it’s Charge Depot in California includes the first MCS charger in North America and the fastest as well.
Now, Tesla does have some fast charges. It’s got 750 kilowatt charges deployed at Pepsi and Tesla facilities, and they are to charge Tesla semis.
But of course, 1.2 megawatts will not double Teslas, but it’s a lot faster. Mcs has a new charging standard to be worked on by charging standard or organization, Charin.
The standard is close to being finished they’ve got their own standard of course, it’s different to Tesla Nacks charging ports because there’s so much juice going through these cables, so much energy going through it.
I can understand why they can’t use a Tesla Nacks cable. It has to be different proprietary, has to be capable of handling immense amounts of power transfer.
What evs installation is an experiment the site has 50 total charges, split between 32 grid-tied 360 kilowatt CCS charges.
So 360 kilowatt charges potentially just for normal EVs on one side, and they have three 1.2 megawatt MCs and 15, 240 kilowatt CCS chargers on the other side.
They are all attached to backup batteries, and And there’s a pretty big solar farm nearby as well.
All of these solar panels obviously can charge these batteries up during the middle of the day. Whenever trucks aren’t there.
Electric Trucks and Renewable Energy
Even when trucks are there, you’re still going to be sending huge amounts of power from this solar farm into these batteries, which can then supply these trucks.
It’s so amazing imagine having a gas station, a gas farm nearby that was renewable and it was not polluting and it enabled these trucks.
And the great thing about this is not the fact just that it’s clean and that it’s self-perpetuating.
You can create clean, free energy it’s also these electric trucks are just so much safer.
When you see them on the road, able to get up hills at good speeds and not go up hills at 20 miles an hour in a 60 miles, 70 mile road, so much safer, these electric trucks so much more sustainable.
And also the drivers are saying they much prefer driving them. What EV can connect this set up to the grid, but it’s actually not currently connected to the grid.
Between its grant from CEC, the lack of UL-certified MCS charges could be causing a grid connection delay.
So apparently, there’s some delays with getting connected to the grid, but I’m sure it will happen at some point.
In my opinion, These systems are the future. We’re going to see more and more of these power stations, like many power stations that can charge trucks, especially on freeways.
Places where people stop, roadhouses where trucks stop.
Australia Land Use
I think we’re going to see these kinds of setups where there’ll be solar farms, especially in places like Australia, because in Australia so much land, so much of it is not used.
I mean, 95% of Australia is just pretty much useless land. It’s perfect for putting these big solar farms, and we have such long distances to travel.
So these kinds of setups will work so well in Australia. And of course, it’s great to see this happening in America it gives impetus to build these kinds of stations.