Gearless Fast Charge

[carpediem1956]

you are surprised their aren't so many on the road? I think the price explains 99 % of your amazement. :-p far to expensive. Instead of paying for gas you need to pay an enormous premium for the battery at purchase time. The gasoline price you can spread over time... Once this premium is gone and you can make immediate savings at 'the pump' it will boom

[drbaltazar]

we ll probably see those quick recharging station in truckstop first (since there are resto to relax while it is charging even if it take an hour to charge most user will be delighted because the main issue everybody had wasnt the distance but how long it take to charge .if they can make 45 minute charging the norm ev will be adopted very quickly

[pcarlson1979]

I live in Australia and tried like hell to try and buy one of these. I had to answer questions to see if I "qualify" to but one. Long story short, 3 of these were imported into Australia and just leaded to government departments. That's it!!

Tight ass Aussie government give no incentives to buy green cars. Our government are full of sh*t.

I'm buying an electric scooter this weekend for $5000 from Melbourne. Still does 100km/h and 140km range. It will do until a "real" electric car is offered

[Jesus45U]

Fast recharge electrical vehicles will probably be one of the big sellers in relative near future, especially for small city cars. The recharge time has to go down some though, 4-5 minutes tops, or the queues at the recharge stations will become too long to be practical.

As for the backbone, base it off known technology, like the train overhead lines .. most of europe use 25kvolt train lines already and they can carry a lot of juice. Make the recharge stations near train stations, and voilá.

[ElectricCarFan]

I thought residents of England use kilometers, not miles due to Europe's use of the Metric System? I thought that today only 3 countries use the Imperial System, Burma, Liberia, and the United States.

[richardcorsale]

Ohhhh I want one... I read about this technology several years ago, but I was under the impression that the special sauce was on the battery, not the pump(?). The one I'm thinking of was the Dewalt power tool's battery (Pop Sci 09).

[thinfourth]

430volts and 70Amps

Thats a scarey amount of juice

[taztaz79]

@thinfourth Yepp!! That is 30kW of power! If i use 1 phase in my house (230v 16A) i will get 3,7kW .. If i use all 3 phases i will get (400v 16A) 6,4kW .. So there is still a long way to go to that monster charger :) That charger uses more power than my whole company building where i work... :)

[bigbleuboy]

yeh although the fuel(electric is cheap) just out of interest how much to change the battery?

[Zamboro]

@bigbleuboy

8 cents per mile. That is, if you subscribe to the eMiles plan. That way you pay only for what you use, eventually paying off the cost of the battery over it's useful lifespan. Otherwise it's a monthly fee of about $150 which gradually pays off the battery, By the time you need a new one, it's been paid for.

[paulbennett2324]

It's just like having a petrol tank except it's electric.

[backacheache]

I love the idea of electric vehicles and of fast charging but I think the one obstacle is connectors (especially for fast charge) for my girlfriend to accept it there would have to be one standard high-amperage (greater than 16amps) connector for all vehicles, as the chargers are usually on board the vehicle this shouldn't be difficult

[DanFrederiksen]

Robbie, what is the actual highway range of this thing in your experience? autocar. co. uk just put out an article basically accusing it of running dead after 40miles of 55mph driving and concluding that the range is useless and EVs wont matter anytime soon. your experience seems to differ some : ) so what's the truth?

[unriselyrical]

I'm sold!

[jpmorgan187]

wonderful.

[Maglevspiritualgeek]

What's the name of the song?

[DanFrederiksen]

very nice.

but why not put it to mitsubishi why they dont at the very least put up 8-10 of those stations in key locations right now!

backbone up through england and a ring around london as a very good starting point. it has to be in place before sales start, not long after and it must truly be an insignificant cost for them compared to the attention and goodwill it would buy them.

[bvproctor]

What do you think of the proposed retail price? £39k seems rather prohibitive given that, as you say, there are very few moving parts in an EV, the batteries are off the shelf items and re other components its just another car. The tech isn't exactly new either, so the 'introducing revolutionary tech' argument doesn't really stack up does it? I'm also not sure how many fast charging points you'd need at a motorway service station @ 1 car every 15 mins, those places always seem quite busy.

[AndY1ksi]

Mitsubishi announces UK pricing for i-MiEV: £33,699

Well, I was about to buy Citroen C-Zero this fall, but for max. 20.000-25.000 EUR. No way, I'm going to pay this much.

Until price falls or competition brings prices down, I'll drive my Vectrix.

[eldictator1]

@AndY1ksi I agree, I may have considered 25k with the govt grant knocking 5k off but 34k is crazy considering the model s tesla will be around 50k

[AndY1ksi]

@eldictator1 Yeah. Remember, iMiev is priced at 34k of british pounds. That's 50.600 US$.

Tesla's Model S, priced at 57k US$ (without incentives), looks like a bargain - only 7k US$ more expensive than iMiEV and Tesla's Model S is a big sedan.

[eldictator1]

@AndY1ksi Yes 34k stirling£, with the 5k grant 29K?? It's crazy, when I can get a fiat 500 arbath for just under £14k and a new citroen ds for around 16k. I was hoping the imiev would be around £25k

unfortunately andY judging from past sales and prices, it looks like the model s will be £57k, rather than the 38-40k it should be, we get screwed like that all the time in the u.k, even if you add tax shipping etc it still would come to around £45k, but companies do it all the time

[AndY1ksi]

@eldictator1 Yeah, or VolksWagen Polo 1.2 TDI BlueMotion with 2.9l/100km of diesel consumption for 16k EUR or less.

I mean, I love riding electric (Vectrix), but I don't like being scre*ed either ;-)

I've had a chance to test drive Tazzari (which costs 25k EUR), but it's more of a gokart than a car; not just the size wise, but the riding feel like too.

Yeah, I know the US to UK 1=1 conversion. It's not fair. But judging from Tesla Roadster (110kUS, 100kEUR), it looks as it may not be 1=1.

[eldictator1]

@AndY1ksi I suppose any car with automatic transmission and high torque will be like a go kart, which isn't that bad really I suppose :)

Ahh the vectrix scooter, I'm considering a zero to be honest or maybe the ktm moto x elec.

Hopefully the roadster will be around £40k without 5k grant

[AndY1ksi]

@eldictator1 I mean, Japanese my pay that much for the iMieV, but as I recall they use hardly any diesel engines in personal vehicles. Europe has diesel tradition and with diesel engines coming out this year, with such low consumption, I think Mitsubishi may have miscalculated here.

Or they just want to get premium from filthy rich early adopters and then lower the price.

I mean, iMiev was supposed to be a 'volkswagen' (people's car) of EVs.

[eldictator1]

@AndY1ksi Yes they may think that the rich early adopters, I.e politicians and celebs will cover the cost, but I still think the price point is too high by atleast 5k. I think a car of that size with that range should be around 19k, but obviously new tech and new batteries etc...small baby steps I suppose

[eldictator1]

@AndY1ksi The imiev may just be dead in the water, lets hope the leaf will be nearer the prius price and around 25k. If tesla can get the model s near to £30-35k they may have a hit. I think the winner of this situation surprisingly will be GM and their ampera/volt. I may just buy a zero DS motorcycle instead

[robinphillips]

These are great, could do with more jokes though ;-)

[richandiben]

If it did it in 10-15 SECONDS, that would be the game changer Robert. Progress none the less though. Thanks.

[Zamboro]

@richandiben

You can't even refuel a gasoline vehicle that fast.

[richandiben]

@Zamboro Don't you watch the F1? They can fill up and change all 4 wheels in 8!.

[Zamboro]

@richandiben

Are you seriously implying that the average motorist drives an F1 racer and has access to a pit crew at every gas station?

[richandiben]

@Zamboro ..........er, no. Are you mental?

[feckingbillgates]

Why are gears not needed?

[Zamboro]

@feckingbillgates

Electric vehicles have no transmission, typically. They don't need to be able to shift gears. 100% of the torque is available at all times, it's just a matter of how much power you feed the motor.

[xonegon]

Does the battery drain a lot faster when transporting 2 -3 other persons with this car?

[GearlessUK]

Haven't noticed a big difference, I'm sure it would reduce the range a little

[simeoneous]

Robert, are Mitsubishi or Tesla looking at the possibility of keeping the battery charged for longer by harnessing the kinetic energy to generate 'top-up' electricity while the car is in motion. Or would it be so little as to not be worth exploring?

[GearlessUK]

@simeoneous They already do that. All electric cars use 'regenerative braking' which sends some of the power used to gain motion back into the batteries. It's around 10%.

[SquareoftheyearFM]

@simeoneous most EV's these days have some sort of regenerative braking, see one of the earlier videos on exactly that.

[simeoneous]

@SquareoftheyearFM Thanks for the heads up FM, I keep meaning to check out Robert's earlier videos. 10% energy recovery isn't a bad figure at this stage, I can only see it getting better as the technology pushes forward as rapidly as it appears to be doing.

[idustrialrevolution]

Charger should send you a text when finished

[SquareoftheyearFM]

@idustrialrevolution there is an iPhone application to do just this with the iMiev

[alexvegas]

I like how the 'pump' is modelled on petrol pumps. There's nothing at all alien about it all, presumably something very intentional.

[Paxmax]

351V at 70A for 15 mins = 6,12 kWh.. small battery? You had roughly 28% left before charging, so total capacity around 8kWh? maybe the voltage bumps up later?

A normal deep cycle lead acid battery would have 0,7-1kWh a piece, but they wouldn't like that fast charge!!

Wow, it gets 81 miles on 8kWh?? that's like cruising at 85km/h using only 5,3kW

How the heck does it manage?!

[Bogt]

@Paxmax I just made the same calculation

If the I-miev has a 16 kWh pack and if I

assume that he had 28% left before charging .

(at 80% dod) That is 6360Wh + 6120Wh=

12480Wh (if 100% full) But the charger says 80%

full in 30 minutes so that means 14.9 kWh

at 100% full for the user but still 1.1 kWh left

to push in the pack if possible. But this calculations

are with charging losses.

[Bogt]

@Bogt Sorry without charging losses. For

some stupid reason I can't type longer

sentiences without going out of the text field.

[Paxmax]

@Bogt Ah yes, but the estimated charging time on the machine was wrong, it was done in less than 20 minutes, probably somewhere between 10-15 minutes according to Robert.

[Paxmax]

@Bogt Sorry Bogt, My first reply wasn't thought through.

Ah, yes, a new iMiev is suppose to have 16kWh battery pack. Maybe the one Robert is driving is an earlier model with a smaller bat pack?

Well, the charging station has big problems finding out how much juice is left in the bat pack, Ideal would be if it communicated with the car. "Oh, you have been spending 5.4kWh since last recharge? Ok, I'll set you back in.... well gimme 13.2 minutes."

[Paxmax]

@Bogt Looking at the video, the cars own bat meter shows just below half full rolling into charging station.

I'm sure it will have a residual power, like you said, 80% = 0 left to spend normally.

So, I do concur with your math.

[NotEvsie]

Do you have any idea how much one of these will cost new? Just had a look on Mitsubishi's UK website and can't find any details.

[MrPaulAlbinson]

I so want the iMiev but would like more quick charge points though

[choc113]

Isn't it only so cheap because they don't tax it so heavily or at all? So if the things actually became widespread they would have to tax it the same as a petrol car or lose a load of revenue. So the whole cheap point Robert is making is moot isn't it?

[alexvegas]

@choc113 It's cheap because it uses electricity which is cheaper than petrol. That's all.

[choc113]

@alexvegas es but petrol is also dirt cheap if you discount the tax so if there was large scale switching over to cars like this they would have to tax them in someway, or lose a huge revenue source.

[KlaxonCow]

@choc113

Heavily taxing electricity? How would that work exactly?

How could they heavily tax electricity for the purposes of vehicles, yet simultaneously avoid heavily taxing household electricity?

Or would they heavily tax all electricity? Seeing as anyone can generate electricity with, say, a generator (or even a bicycle and a dynamo) or whatever, how on Earth would the tax man ever be able to pragmatically impose such a tax?

[KlaxonCow]

I mean, effectively, you're saying that they'd introduce a heavy "electron flow tax"?

Would God get taxed through the arse for lightning bolts under this scheme? Would the tax man come around and assess your carpets (and any party balloons you might purchase) for their potential to generate static electricity?

Really, how exactly would such an "electricity tax" even work?

[choc113]

@KlaxonCow They would obviously tax the actual machine that you saw Robert use After all petrol stations don't pay full price for the petrol in the tanker or they would not make any profit. As for how they would do it practically for youe house ? the same way they do now with a separate meter built in to the "punp" Robert used and a separate bill

[GearlessUK]

@choc113 This is a very good point. I am sure the govt will introduce a tax on electricity once the cars become more common. However, you can produce electricity yourself, you cannot produce petrol yourself.

[choc113]

@GearlessUK Are you REALLY going to sit there all evening peddalling a bike to charge a battery? FYI I saw a program on WW" once and some old soldjers where saying when they where in some jungle they had to pedala bike to charge abattery to work the radio to talk to HQ they said one guy had topeadl ALL DAY to get a few minutes of radio time charging up a car is in practical terms impossable more is the pity:(

[GearlessUK]

That's very funny. I don't know if you meant it to be funny, but it made me laugh. I would probably have to pedal for 3 weeks to charge my car. That's not quite what I meant. I was thinking more of a massive wind turbine, a huge solar panel array, geo thermal power stations, power generating other than from massive coal burning power stations. Nice thought though.

[choc113]

@GearlessUK But you can't put a huge wind turbine or a solar array on your house.(you did say you wanted to generate it yourself) At least not one big enough to make any appreciable amount of electricity.The technology simply is not efficient enough:( As for a geothermal power station a volcano in the back garden does not sound much fun TBH Sorry for my spelling previously YouTube comments are being stupid and I cant see what I type:(

[Bogt]

@GearlessUK I have made some calculations

on power usage in the comments. Would you like to make

a comment on that please? Are you planning to make some calculations on real

world power usage? Thanks!

[Nightmare060]

Well, you can't argue with results!

[pcgamerguy1234]

thats quite long to have to recharge your car but i spose tu have to make a sacrifice for the environment

[Nightmare060]

@pcgamerguy1234 While yest it is longer than the time it takes to fill up petrol cars, compared to what anti-electric car people will say it's not actualy that long. So IMO I think it's a reasonable sacrifice for the benefits it does to all of us!

[choc113]

@Nightmare060 What benifit electricity does not come out of a pkug! it come from a power station.Why is that any better for the enviroment than a car?

[Nightmare060]

@choc113 The benefit is that it uses said power more eficiantly so it conserves enargy and the enviroment better.

Plus smart useage of said electricity can save even more.

Greenan3610 did a great video on this explaining the details.

[livingprooffilms]

@pcgamerguy1234 But if you're driving only a couple of miles a day, to work and back, you just plug it in at night so it wouldn't even matter. And even if you are travels a long way it's most likely that you will stop at a service station for food/drink/toilet, so 15 minutes is nothing. I'm sure Bobby knows more about this than I do.

[Paxmax]

@livingprooffilms only boring thing would be that you'd have to stop and recharge every 1,5-2 hours if you drive continuously long haul. Maybe in one year that time will stretch to 2-2,5 hours...

[livingprooffilms]

@Paxmax The good thing is the batteries are

getting better and better each year, so yeah

hopefully the range will increase by alot.

[DrKremmen]

I didn't see 70 on a single-carriageway there did I Bobby! Hehe... Say no more! :-)

[dragade101]

the odd thing though is that there are still gears in your car. so its kind of off to say gearless.

[GearlessUK]

Interesting point. I'll have to show a shot of the drive unit. Just a direct connection from motor to wheels. So there are not really any gears. The motor takes you from stationary to around 85 mph in one smooth operation. Reverse is just the motor turning the other way. I admit it's a mute point as some electric cars run the drive through a gearing system, but there is none of the big heavy clutch, gearbox nonsense you get in ICE cars

[Paxmax]

@dragade101 no..... it's a direct drive engine mounted in the rearl, no transmission...

[aminorjourney]

OH man. Dig the size of that connector. I have connector Envy, Robert!

Where can I get one of those for MY EV?

[souptaster]

5 stars for bacon buttie!

[CCmachine]

Mitsubishi claims a recharge costs 45 pence, to travel 100 miles.

Some googling and you find the figure for the battery: 16 kilowatt-hours. For 45 pence, your electricity rate would have to be about 2.8p per kWh, assuming the charger is 100% efficient (which it isnt, so that price per kWh would have to be lower...).

Electricity here in the UK is usually around 15p or more per kWh isn't it? Or am I missing something here?

[GearlessUK]

Mitsubishi's massive poster, the book that came with the car and every bit of publicity I have ever seen says 97p for 80 miles. I have never heard the 45 p claim, it is not true. I have an off peak meter and the car only charges between 11pm and 7am, I believe the rate then is around 15p per kWh.

[HyperbirdF6]

yes, but the electicity comes from burning oil and coal

isnt that as bad or even worse cos your still burning fuel?

[dragade101]

yes and no.

yes oil is being used in the process to run the car but what about wind/water/solar power plants. there are means to come out with using less oil at the end of all of this.

its not ideal but its better than needing crude in so many applications. but at the end of the day, crude is still wildly more coast and energy effective per capita.

[HyperbirdF6]

i dont think they could use wind or solar energy as they are not reliable and get very little energy

i think hydrogen is the way forward - the honda fcx clarity....the only problem is storing it

[dragade101]

"the only problem is storing it"

what about the problem of having large amounts of hydrogen on hand?

[GearlessUK]

This is the most common argument. Quick question, where does the hydrogen come from? Seriously where? You need to put 4 times more electric energy in than you get out to produce hydrogen. I am driving the Honda Clarity next week, will be filming it for this channel, but at present the cheapest way of producing hydrogen is to strip it from natural gas, a fossil fuel. This may be the reason why companies like Shell and BP are so behind the hydrogen idea.

[jobney76]

@HyperbirdF6 Hydrogen should only be thought of as a battery. It's not a source of energy.

[axb96m]

How do we go about generating hydrogen? Doesn't that require energy?

[Zamboro]

@HyperbirdF6

Fuel cells are also just as expensive as EV batteries and don't last as long. The highest grade fuel cell I know of lasted around 200 days of constant use before it had to be dismantled, cleaned and resurfaced with new platinum. That translates to many years of productive use, but it still doesn't offer any real advantage over batteries.

[GearlessUK]

This is a very common misconception, encouraged a great deal by many lobby groups opposed to electric cars. I readily admit the electricity in my car comes from the national grid and the majority of that electricity is generated by burning fossil fuel (oil, coal, natural gas) However, power stations run at 60% efficiency, electric cars run at 80% efficiency, result. 40 gms CO2 per km. The petrol car with lowest CO2 output (the Prius) is around 80 gm per km, most cars much much more

[jobney76]

@HyperbirdF6 No. Even if you charge your car on all coal power it is still less CO2 then an ICE. Power plants are more efficient at getting energy from fossil fuels then your car. As more renewable energy comes online your EV would still be ready to go. It's a smaller infrastructure change then going to another fuel source in your car (like hydrogen). EVs are ready now and not always 20 years down the road like fuel cells. Once you have an EV you are future proof.

[alexvegas]

@HyperbirdF6 The carbon burnt to generate the energy to power an electric car pales in comparison to the carbon burnt by an internal combustion engine.

My only gripe is still being at the hands of the big energy companies, but this can be avoided with renewable energy sources.