The World of Transportation is at its Revolution
The last two years have become a breakthrough for the transport industry in many ways: the development of unmanned technologies, vehicle-to-vehicle, and vehicle-to-infrastructure technologies, which will allow cars to constantly exchange data with each other, as well as with the components of the road infrastructure (traffic lights, lamps, cameras, parking meters), the growing popularity of car sharing services, as well as an increase in the share of electric vehicles have become key trends for the automotive industry in 2021 and 2022. Of all these trends, perhaps the last one is the most controversial: disputes between supporters and opponents of the idea of widespread distribution of electric vehicles do not subside.
However, if you take a closer look at the measures taken by governments around the world to popularize electric vehicles, it becomes clear that no matter how you feel about “car electrification”, it is gradually gaining momentum, and electric vehicles are becoming our new reality.
Charging stations for electric vehicles: are they in demand?
Indeed, another argument commonly used is the lack of developed infrastructure for charging electric vehicles. There is a direct correlation between the level of development of charging infrastructure and the demand for electric vehicles. And many electric vehicle charging station manufacturers in India are working for the revolutionary change.
For the intensive development of the electric mobility sector, infrastructure manufacturers will also need to take into account the scale of urbanization: if the owner of a one-story house in the private sector can charge an electric car at home, then residents of multi-story buildings will not have this opportunity. In addition, a dense charging network will be required along major highways to allow electric car owners to travel long distances.
Charging infrastructure is a fairly significant investment, and often the indirect costs can exceed the cost of the station itself. What is required for a public charging infrastructure to become profitable?
Technological connection costs should be optimized: connecting chargers to the electrical network should not cost the owner company too much. The so-called spread (the difference between the cost of supplied electricity and purchased electricity) must reach a sufficient volume so that the owners of the charging infrastructure receive a profit that will allow them to expand their charging networks.
At the same time, the cost of the supplied electricity for the owner of an electric car must be reasonable and affordable for the average consumer. True, this does not apply to ultra-fast charging: here the consumer will have to pay extra for comfort.
EV Charging
Each type of charging implies different limits on the maximum charging speed. For charging using alternating current, power equipment installed directly in the electric vehicle is used. Therefore, often with alternating current, the charging power cannot exceed more than 43 kW.
At the same time, for DC charging, the power equipment is installed directly in the EV charging stations and is limited by the speed of the charging station and the ability of the electric vehicle to “take” the power of such charging. To date, there are chargers of this type with a capacity of up to 350 kW.
Many companies in the world are now working on increasing the power so that an electric car can be charged no longer than an internal combustion engine car at a gas station. However, when the charging power is more than 350 kW, there is a problem of overheating the charging cable.
To solve this problem, new types of water-cooled cables are currently being developed, which are not yet in commercial operation. Likewise, electric vehicle manufacturers choose connectors depending on the markets they target. However, there are exceptions.
