Volvo is working on what it calls the world's first three-phase on-board charger. The charger promises to make electric-vehicle charging much faster than it is now. Instead of charging a vehicle overnight or for hours at a time, Volvo claims its on-board unit will allow users to completely refresh their batteries in just 1.5 hours.
Volvo's fast charger has the capability to make a marked improvement over what current on-board electric vehicle charging hardware offers. With a 400-volt three-phase power source, the 22-kW charger can deliver 50 miles (80 km) worth of driving power within half an hour. A full charge will take 1.5 hours.
Volvo's hardware also allows for 230-volt charging with a more traditional overnight time frame. Depending on the available current, a 230-volt supply will charge the battery to full in 8 to 10 hours.
"The user can 'top up' the battery pack with electricity one or more times during the day," explains Lennart Stegland, Volvo's vice president for electric propulsion systems. "This means that the total daily range is significantly extended, yet with the same low operating cost compared to a car with a conventional power train."
Volvo plans to test its fast charger out on a fleet of C30 Electric cars.
Volvo isn't the first automaker to address the issue of long charging times. Nissan began distributing a quick charger system earlier this year, and Tesla recently launched a network of "Superchargers." Unlike those systems, however, Volvo's charger is small enough to fit on board the car.
Source: Volvo
The actual, practical range is still more a more important consideration
Since many vehicles will be in car parking areas for much of the day, away from home charging, it would be sensible to work with two "quick swap" sets of batteries, so that while the car is away from home, another set of batteries can be recharging from the house rooftop solar panels, then topped up from the grid (if necessary) during the dark hours. This would then speed up the charging and reduce the cost of electricity since at least some of the power would come from the sun.
Clearly this would require considerably more current than would be available from a domestic supply, but this would be no problem if using a three-phase industrial system.
Of course, the ultimate would be a battery where the electrolyte, not the electrodes, carried the charge, so all that would be necessary would be replacement of the fluid in the battery, which could then be recharged separately. This would take little longer than filling a conventional tank.
I believe that this is in fact under development, but currently only on an industrial scale.
I am sure my employer would love to see me pull-in and plug into their 3-phase service everyday !
I must be missing something otherwise those super charger (1.5hour a the pump is not what I would call super fast anyway) would not that numerous…