EV charging explained - Will EVs kill the grid?

range anxiety is one of the biggest things holding back Evie adoption having easy access to fast charging alleviates that fear but I also hear from people concerned that everyone charging v's all at once will kill the grid will it let's take a closer look at Evie fast charging the competing standards and what it means for the future of our grid I met feral welcomed undecided I've worked from home the entire time I've owned my model 3 so I don't have a heavy daily commute anymore most of the times I'm using my car for road trips driving around the northeastern United States I've driven from the Boston area to Rochester New York quite a few times to visit family in my car so far which is about a 400 mile drive one-way I also make trips down to New York City to visit my brother from time to time which is about a 200 mile drive I've gotten used to making the 15 to 20 minutes tops to grab some food stretch my legs and charge up the car on those trips in the end the total length of the trip isn't that different from a gasoline car but it all comes down to the fact that I Drive a Tesla Model 3 which can charge up to 150 kilowatts at v2 superchargers so 20 minutes can mean a battery going from 20% to 80% capacity and that goes up to 250 kilowatts at the newer v3 superchargers so it's even faster there but for those newer TVs there's a lot of confusion around charging formats and speeds where you can and can't charge how long it takes and why heck there's even confusion for people who already own TVs probably the most confusing thing about getting a TV is the charging standards it's a little bit of the Wild West when it comes to the connector types and the charging speeds when you buy a gasoline car you don't have to think about the type of nozzle that a gas station uses they're all the same the only thing you have to know is if it's regular versus diesel gasoline with EVs you've got things like J 1772 CCS one type two CCS to Chatham O gbt and Tesla's proprietary plug this would be like shell using a completely different nozzle and their gas pumps than those used by BP or Mobil to add to the overall confusion we also have three different levels of charging stations which ultimately equates to how quickly they can charge your car here's how that breaks down level one charging stations level one uses standard 120 volt connections which is the same as a standard household outlet the plugs that come with an e ve are typically meant for level 1 or level 2 charging but there's an important thing to understand while most of us refer to these as chargers they're actually not they're really just glorified extension cords the charger that converts AC power into DC for the battery is actually onboard the car level 1 plugs work but they can be very slow when I visit my parents in the Rochester area they let me plug into an outlet in the garage I typically see 3 to 4 miles added to the car each hour you can expect somewhere between 1.5 and 2 kilowatts per hour if you're only using your car for daily commuting you can probably get away with this type of setup since you'll most likely be charging overnight but this is obviously not for on-the-go charging or someone who drives over 30 to 40 miles per day the type of nozzle depends on where you live in the world in Japan and the Americas we have the Jay 1772 plug China has G BT and Europe is using the type 2 plug level 2 charging stations level 2 is also using AC power but at a much higher output like a 240 volt power source something like you typically see for an oven or a dryer just like level 1 the car is still doing the AC to DC conversion which is the limiter for how fast the charge will ultimately be this is the route I went with my model 3 I had a 240 volt 80 amp circuit put in and installed a Tesla wall connector in my garage now even though I have an 80 amp circuit the wall connector and the model 3s onboard charger max out at 48 amps while it's much faster than level 1 it's still not fast enough for Alma go charging that's why these are often referred to as destination chargers I can charge my tehsil up in a few hours and typically see rates that equate to about 40 to 45 miles added every hour level 2 chargers usually deliver around 10 to 20 kilowatts per hour you'll find level 2 chargers all over the place at hotels shopping malls and grocery stores they're great for topping off your car while shopping or charging for a few hours overnight level 3 charging stations level 3 is where things get interesting these charging stations tend to be pretty large and off toward the AC to DC conversion from the car they're capable of much higher energy throughput than your car's onboard charger that means the power being delivered through the cable and the connector is already direct current the car can dump the incoming power straight into the battery pack the fastest DC charging stations out there today have a max output of about 350 to 400 kilowatts but there aren't any cars available today they can take advantage of that yet the fastest cars today charge around 250 to 270 kilowatts max like the Tesla Model 3 or the Porsche Ikon it's also these level 3 chargers that typically have different requirements for plugs you can't use the J 1772 to deliver a DC current into the car it's only good for AC power delivery so in the Americas we've landed on the CC s1 which stands for combined charging standard it takes the J 1772 plug and adds two additional DC connectors to the bottom this means that you can have one port in your car that can accept it J 1772 by itself or the full CCS one plug for fast charging China's gbt plug is also capable of DC charging in Japan they're using chatham Oh for fast charging and this is used in some areas still but seems to be falling out of favor for CCS 1 and CCS 2 outside of Japan in Europe and everywhere else they have CCS 2 which takes the type 2 plug and adds an additional DC connector it's the same approach as CCS 1 and then there's Tesla which has their own proprietary plug standard the one small plug is capable of handling everything from level 1 to level 3 the only difference you'll see is the supercharger cables are much thicker than the wall connector the Tesla connector is both a good and a bad thing the single plug makes it easy for Tesla owners but requires a plug adapter to use non Tesla chargers and it means that non Tesla cars can't use the Tesla Chargers without an adapter either in fact known on Tesla vehicles can use superchargers yet Tesla had to add CCS to ports the Tesla's sold in the EU as well as to their superchargers I'm not sure we'll see a similar requirement here in the US but I'd love to see some kind of standardization here as well with Tesla and other V's the simpler we can make it the better I kind of look at it like Apple with the Lightning port on iPhones it'd be great if they would just make the switch to USB see like everybody else but as a company I understand why they don't want to do that quite yet it's the level 3 charging stations that are the key to long road trips and this is an area that Tesla has a commanding lead over the competition with a supercharger network around the world the supercharger network currently has about 1870 stations with sixteen thousand five hundred eighty-five superchargers the v2 superchargers maxed out 150 kilowatts but the newer v3 superchargers that they're rolling out now charge up to 250 kilowatts in Europe you have companies like Ayane T and fast Ned building out fast charging networks in the u.s. you have EB go with fast chargers that are mostly around 50 kilowatts and Electrify America installing 350 kilowatt charging stations well none of these have the distribution of the supercharger network yet they're working fast to try to catch up that covers the basics for the most common chargers and connectors in use today but the underlying question of how this will impact the grid is a little tougher to answer one of the arguments against EVs is that the more power-hungry level 2 & 3 Chargers put a big strain in the grid and if everyone was having to plug their cars into charge it would bring everything down now in theory it seems like a valid concern but it's a lot more complicated than that in 2019 Eevee's made up about 2.2 percent of car sales in the US and about 2.5 percent worldwide one projection has evie sales hitting ten to twelve point five percent by 2025 and getting to fifty percent of sales sometime around twenty thirty five to twenty forty the Boston Consulting Group also puts a V adoption hitting 50 percent sometime in the 2030s the rate of adoption is important because it gives utilities time to upgrade and grow with the adoption curve of v's if companies are able to incentivize charging patterns like giving discounted rates to charge overnight instead of during the day it can help distribute charging to off-peak times utilities would be able to reduce the amount of grid upgrades required because they were redistributed the demand in the Boston Consulting Group's modelling they showed that the optimized charging patterns would reduce transmission and distribution costs by 70% per evey through 2030 so what happens if they can't shift demand with incentives the same studies showed that there could be a big spike in electricity costs in order to cover the grid upgrades if utilities are successful electricity price increases could be kept down to about three to five cents per kilowatt hour which is essentially unchanged however if utilities don't take the proper measures like the discounted rates for overnight charging you could be looking at a two percent rate increase many utilities are already rolling out evie incentives to get ahead of this here Massachusetts my utility is eversource and they have a program called connected solutions which incentivizes installing a smart charger in your home it's essentially a smart home technology that allows them to control the charging speed and times in order to balance the grid usage I actually participated in this program with my smart thermostat last summer which worked really well for my perspective I didn't notice much of a change but it helped to spread the load on the grid but it's not all up to the utilities themselves companies are introducing products to help manage the load as well Analects recently announced a new line of chargers that all integrate by machines whether it's home wall plugs or public chargers that communicate on a network called juice net which can dynamically optimize the state of charge energy consumption and the needs of the grid in real time blink has introduced wall plugs that also have load management built in these are designed with multifamily buildings in mind because you can install up to 20 of them off of a single-phase AC circuit they shared the available power between all of the plugged in TVs this reduces overload and installation costs and finally there are systems like wall boxes quasar bi-directional charger not only can you charge your car but you can use your car to power your home when it's needed vehicle to grid systems can also benefit utilities because they could siphon off small amounts of power from your car during peak load times and then they replenish that energy along with paying you for what they used fast chargers which require incredible throughput also have some interesting solutions in the works some companies like envision solar and fast Ned are rolling out charging stations powered by solar and wind power combining battery storage with Eva charging stations can also have a major impact the stations can either store renewable energy generation from those solar panels or the batteries can trickle charge from the grid at a lower rate and at off-peak times the batteries provide the high power bursts that are needed while charging cars instead of having to do it from the grid VW actually just introduced its first charging station with built-in battery in January and E Vigo has installed 14 battery storage systems so far to help balance demand are their challenges and cost upgrading the grid to handle EB adoption of course but they're not insurmountable and not guaranteed to drive electricity costs through the roof we're already seeing utilities and companies introducing solutions to balance load and keep cost down and we all need to remember that it's gonna take time for EVs to reach a level that might cause some problems for the grid as AV adoption ramps up so will the changes to our grid and charging infrastructure we didn't have gasoline stations on every corner and in an infrastructure to support internal combustion engine cars on day one either this will be no different where some seen roadblocks others see opportunities there are a lot of smart people and companies finding solutions to all of this and I'm really excited to see where it goes and speaking of companies that see opportunities instead of roadblocks check out my Tesla explained video they have a lot more in common with a Silicon Valley tech company than a car company it's part of why they're so disruptive now jump into the comments and let me know what you think and as always thanks so much for watching I'll see you in the next one

Channel: Undecided with Matt Ferrell

Views: 177,079

Keywords: electric vehicle charging, electric vehicle charging business model, electric vehicle charging explained, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, electric vehicle charging station, electric vehicle charging station installation, electric vehicle charging time, electric vehicle, electric vehicle wireless charging, ev charging explained, ev charging levels explained, ev wireless charging, ev, explained, fully charged show, model 3, tesla, undecided with matt ferrell, witricity

Id: 3FSMG5KbQkM

Length: 12min 46sec (766 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 07 2020