Fast Recharge (Flash Charge)

[Trakar]

Fast recharge (15sec/3-4min.) for electric bus.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OaU1rL7IhM4"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OaU1rL7IhM4[/ame]
According to ABB, the bus can be charged with a 15 second, 400 kilowatt boost at selected stops, which allows for the vehicle to top off its charge while the passengers are loading or leaving the bus, and a 3 to 4 minute charge at the end of the bus line will then fully recharge the batteries

 

[ScienceRocks]

Could something like this be installed into cars?

 

[Trakar]

Could something like this be installed into cars?

There are several complicating factors making it unlikely to be extremely useful for personal vehicles, primarily: cars generally aren't following a scheduled, fixed route with dictated regular periodic stops. An electric bus of this type wouldn't need a battery pack sufficient to cover an entire days worth of transit, merely enough to cover its basic route circuit. The short flash-charges merely top off the cells keeping them operating at full charge capacity throughout the route. I would guess that the batteries are deep-cycle recharged overnight, the bus station (5 min) recharges and the bus stop (15-30 sec) recharges just boost performance from the lighter battery packs throughout the course of the day. I don't imagine that private vehicle owners would be too excited about having to pull into a charging station every 15-20 minutes to top-off even if it was only for 15-30 secs, and stop for a longer charge every 2 hours. That said, Mall parking that also completely recharged your vehicle battery pack over the period of an hour or so that it took you to get what you needed at the mall, seems like a bonus to me. I believe the Volt charging stations take about 20 minutes to fully charge their battery packs, but at highway speeds you only get about 0.5-1 hour of full electric operation out of their packs. Electric transportation is definitely improving and plug-in hybrid systems are a good transition, but there is still a ways to go before we get to a good all-electric vehicle system that will replace all modern IC transportation.

I actually think the focus should be more on converting mass-transit, construction equipment, long-haul trucking, and ag. equipment where weight, speed/acceleration, and size are not the primary concerns that they are in personal transportation vehicles.