Comments on: ABB Unveils Ultrafast, 15-Second “Flash Charging” Electric Bus

By: bioburner

bioburner — Thu, 13 Feb 2014 21:43:00 +0000

OK but 400 KW for 15 seconds is only 1.7 KWH which is not going to push a bus very far. It is crazy fast.

By: zing

zing — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 12:57:00 +0000

Thats cool but I saw (and rode) these back at the shanghai expo 2010. Anybody know what company made them?

By: jim

jim — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 12:53:00 +0000

this would be an interesting article if Proterra hadn’t created this technology solution over 3 years ago…
http://www.proterra.com/

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

By: Otis11

Otis11 — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 06:02:00 +0000

Notice – this bus is only going a few kilometers on a charge.

I don’t know that this is necessarily any new, innovative technology, but rather careful engineering to minimize the amount of batteries needed to get from the first charging station to the next (plus some overhead) and then structuring this minimal amount of batteries in such a way that they can be charged very quickly. I would be surprised if there is substantial innovation here.

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” -Einstein (Also see: Occam’s razor)

By: JMin2020

JMin2020 — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 14:29:00 +0000

Sweet system. Thanks for the post .

By: Kompulsa

Kompulsa — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 13:42:00 +0000

They certainly are real. I own a few tiny ones. They are tremendously powerful for their size.

By: eject

eject — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 10:46:00 +0000

Actually this can be done with Li batteries with no big problem. The Headway 10Ah 3,3V LiFePo4 38.120SE cell can take 100A for 10 sec and 40A continuously. With a 400kW charger to be delivered at 4V (charging voltage of a single cell) for charging all cells paralelle a current of 125000A would be necessary. This can easily be swallowed by 1250 of the mentioned Headway cells. That would be the most extreme case scenario. Hence a Bus will need quiet some battery capacity it will have more an larger cells. Taking up 400kW for 15s is not something limited by the batteries, the wiring and the power supply is however.

By: Marion Meads

Marion Meads — Fri, 31 May 2013 18:31:00 +0000

The reason why they are called Ultracapacitors is that they also have higher energy densities compared to super capacitors. There were few companies that tried regen capture using UCs, but the costs are too high. And as you already pointed out, no mass adoption so no roles as of yet, except perhaps some very few niche applications.

By: sola

sola — Fri, 31 May 2013 18:20:00 +0000

This will be some combination of ultracaps and batteries.

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Fri, 31 May 2013 17:53:00 +0000

Ultracapacitors are quite real. They just haven’t found significant roles yet, prices are high.

UCs don’t have large capacity. The charge and discharge very rapidly and last hundreds of thousands of cycles. They’d be to bulky to use as primary energy storage in a vehicle.

By: Marion Meads

Marion Meads — Fri, 31 May 2013 17:29:00 +0000

super capacitors would be the ticket instead of batteries.

By: Marion Meads

Marion Meads — Fri, 31 May 2013 17:28:00 +0000

they could be using the most advanced super duper capacitors for quick charging. It would have been nice if ultracapacitors become a reality, but it was only a dream by EESTOR.

By: J_JamesM

J_JamesM — Fri, 31 May 2013 16:31:00 +0000

This seems almost too good to be true. I would have thought that such insanely quick charging would be hell on the batteries.