If Tesla Used Ultracapacitors: Super Fast Charging and Lightning Fast Acceleration

can supercapacitors challenge batteries and if so should they or should they rather work in conjunction with batteries and perhaps take electric vehicles to the next level and could super capacitors perhaps one day replace batteries altogether these are the avenues we'll be exploring in today's episode but first let's get plugged in [Music] hello everyone and welcome to easy source my name is Harry and I'm your host for today's dose of EVs and technology ultracapacitors or otherwise known as super capacitors have come a long way since they were invented with the leaps and bounds being made with capacitors they've gone from being able to store a tiny amount of energy to now being able to store enough energy to be considered as a power source aside from providing electricity for an extended period of time they can also be charged very quickly we're talking from a few seconds to just a few minutes depending on the size and the power available there's been another development combining the technology of super capacitors with lithium ion batteries making so-called hybrid batteries the usual downside of super capacitors from batteries is that they don't provide electricity for nearly as long however with lithium-ion capacitors that is quickly changing the same goes for super capacitors that have seen a lot of improvement over the past few years and guys if you're new to the channel please take a moment to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss anything going forward this really helps out with the channel now let's get back to the video super capacitors hold the charge as static energy unlike batteries that store the energy in a liquid electrolyte we all know what can happen with batteries when things go wrong this makes super capacitors much safer super capacitors are already used today in multiple applications for instance in buses that charge every four to five miles in trains to capture the vast amount of energy when stopping and in microgrids to inject power when the demand is high the major benefit with super capacitors is the amount of power they can output in a matter of seconds something batteries cannot do unless you put a whole bunch of them together to output power at the same time this is how the Tesla Model S for instance is able to activate the ludicrous mode if the battery pack was smaller it wouldn't be able to accelerate as fast but by making the path bigger the car can access more energy at once to enable a quick acceleration but batteries do not like to be discharged that quickly which is why it's not recommended to use the ludicrous mode too often and they also don't like to be charged quickly which is why periodically using superchargers will degrade the battery's faster and reduce the battery pack slide time but with supercapacitors this won't be a problem if you need to accelerate fast the super capacitors could provide the energy for extremely fast acceleration and thus taking the load off from batteries during accelerations and just like they can discharge a vast amount of energy at once they can be charged very quickly as well depending on the size of the super capacitors charging them can take anywhere between a few seconds to a few minutes super capacitors don't have an overheating problem unlike batteries this is why charging lithium-ion batteries take so much time they can only accept a certain amount of charge at a time and the energy input decreases as the battery gets full thing go in like a glass that's empty at first you can have water flowing into the glass and a fast rate but as the glass is getting almost full you have to slow down the water to prevent it from overflowing super capacitors on the other hand can take in vast amounts of energy all at once without slowing down another advantage of super capacitors is that they can do millions of charging cycles so why don't we use them in electric cars today well unlike batteries the super capacitors don't have enough energy density meaning they cannot store nearly as much energy as the batteries do the new dry batteries from Maxwell technologies that was acquired by Tesla have an energy density of 300 watt hours per kilogram whereas a typical super capacitor available today is around 10 watt hours per kilogram that's 30 times less energy than in a battery but here's the good part they're getting better there are new breakthroughs happening in the super capacitor front that are enabling them to have more energy storage bringing them that much closer to lithium ion batteries one of the new breakthroughs includes the much talked-about Wonder material called graphene graphene is a thin crystalline layer of carbon at one atom thick that is organized in a honeycomb pattern this material is one of the strongest materials ever known this one atom thick material is 100 times stronger than steel and this new Wonder material can revolutionize almost everything from consumer electronics to more efficient solar panels scientists at UCL and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed a flexible graphene-based super capacitor that can safely charge at high speed and store a considerable amount of energy for a long time the new super capacitor uses a multi graphene electrode that can bend up to 180 degrees without losing its performance several research and development labs have confirmed over 50 watt hours per kilogram with graphene based technologies a paper from 2017 shows a graphene super capacitor with an energy density of 148 point 75 watt hours per kilogram the paper goes more in detail about the super capacitor but I'll leave a link in the description in case any of you are interested in knowing more about it and as I continued my research into super capacitors I found that there are labs that are claiming up to 600 watt hours per kilogram in lab samples but wait before we make any conclusions let's see what the professionals have to say about it according to Carl Jung who is the founder of precision technology Inc and has a degree in engineering and aerodynamics once the lab samples are packed in commercial packaging such as a pouch cell this 600 watt hours per kilogram translates to around 150 watt hours per kilogram this is approximately 60% of the specific energy of the battery cells in Tesla EVs today but due to super capacitors self-discharge rate we can expect about 70% of usable energy so for instance an 80 kilowatt hour pack would give you about 56 kilowatt hours of useful energy in a Tesla Model S that's about 200 miles of range or 320 kilometres and in a Tesla Model 3 that's about 300 miles of range or foreign 80 kilometres and since super capacitors can fully recharge in a few seconds provided there is sufficient power available the lower mileage per charge could be acceptable let's quickly do a rough estimate on power requirements for a five minute charge of 80 kilowatt hours at 480 volts which is what the test i version 3 superchargers are operating at I'm not gonna bore you with all the maths so I'll just show the results instead so to charge from zero to 100% in five minutes means you would need a 1.8 megawatt charger and an internal bus network inside the vehicle designed to handle this kind of current but let's be a bit more realistic though and dye it down to what Tesla version 3 superchargers delivered today which is 250 kilowatts this means to charge it from zero to 100% it would take you about 35 minutes so as you can see the only bottleneck here is the charging capacity if we had one megawatt Chargers the time would instantly be dropped down to less than 10 minutes for a zero to 100% charge now this is starting to sound more reasonable isn't it one of the major reasons why we don't have make up on charges for EVs today is that they use batteries and batteries cannot accept that much power without overheating and possibly exploding super capacitors sound very promising but they do have a long road ahead of them before automakers like Tesla start replacing batteries with super capacitors but what if we did not replace the batteries with super capacitors but instead use them together there are multiple ways super capacitors could enhance EVs today using Tesla vehicles as an example they come with regenerative braking which gives energy back into the batteries but not all of the energy gets stored a substantial amount of the energy goes to waste simply because the batteries cannot take in so much power all at once but super capacitors can even having a 1 kilowatt hour super capacitor would enable electric cars to soak in up to 95% of the energy from region breaking and use that energy for quick accelerations or too slowly charge the battery pack this could increase the battery packs lifetime and reduce the load on the batteries and putting this together with better efficiency with region breaking you could get more range out of the vehicle more range and longer battery life time faster acceleration and fast charging for example if a vehicle has a 50 kilowatt hour battery pack reducing it to 40 kilowatt hours means it would take less time to charge it and adding a technical one our super capacitor would bring the total power back to 50 kilowatt hours charging the super capacitor would take just a few seconds to maybe a minute so when you need to add a range quickly this could be a way to do it additionally the 10 kilowatt hour super capacitor could continue charging the battery pack while you're on the road if the load on the batteries is less than what the super capacitor is delivering then you will see the available range go up as you're driving but if it's the opposite then your range will continue to go down as it would normally but at a slow rate either way this means you would spend less time charging and more time driving although super capacitors still cost between 2400 and $6,000 per kilowatt hour experts are saying they may soon see a similar cost drop as batteries have in the coming years while increasing the energy density and since Maxwell technologies specializes in super capacitors this might be one of the reasons why Tesla acquired them because there may be some future potential that Tesla sees in this technology the area that I was studying with advanced capacitors right so essentially capacitors that have an energy density exceeding that of batteries because they have a very high power density but but a low energy density another see if you if you could make a capacitor that had anywhere near the energy density of battery and with incredibly high power density as quasi infinite cycling calendar life then you'd have an awesome solution for energy storage and mobile applications the dry electrode batteries could be just the tip of the iceberg just like there are companies already making lithium-ion capacitors perhaps we will see them for Maxwell technologies as well now that they're working together with Tesla a hybrid battery that's partly themed and part capacitor with considerable amount of energy density you might be exactly what we need to truly make electric vehicles the best sustainable solution for future transportation and other energy needs or perhaps they will make their own variation of graphene-based super capacitors the possibilities are almost endless but only time will tell which direction these technologies will take us one thing is for sure this could make five to ten minute charging time a reality that would quiet all the naysayers on TVs because of their long charging time nevertheless these technologies will continue to improve and over time we might see substantial changes in electric vehicles remember we're still just beginning the journey with TVs one aspect that accelerates and improves technologies used in consumer vehicles is racing just like the technologies from Formula one cars and made consumer vehicles better in many ways for instance fuel economy and efficiency the new formula 1e may one day do the same for electric vehicles [Music] [Applause] [Music] supercapacitors could also be used in heavy-duty vehicles and semi trucks for a quick burst of energy to get them moving before the batteries take over the graphene-based super capacitors could also be used in mobile devices such as phones this would get rid of the long charging times that enable phones to be charged in seconds or in just couple of minutes the possibilities are endless so in a nutshell batteries and ultra capacitors are complementary technologies batteries provide energy for the long term while ultra capacitors provide the fastest reaction in high power together I think ultra capacitors and batteries are the future of electrification and if used in EVs it will enable fast charging and fast acceleration while putting less load on the battery pack and thus increasing its lifetime and maybe one day ultra capacitors can replace batteries and enable all electric vehicles to charge to 100 percent in less time than it takes to fill up a gas tank but that is yet to be seen and could possibly be reality somewhere in the future but for now they could be used together with batteries for better efficiency so guys what do you think about ultra capacitors should they be used in EVs and do you think they can one day replace batteries altogether as always leave your thoughts and comments down below I hope you enjoyed this episode about ultra capacitors and if you did hit the like button so that YouTube knows to show this video to others who might be interested in this topic and subscribe if you haven't already and hit that Bell icon so you don't miss anything going forward here we are again at the end of the video I find it very exciting to watch how technologies are getting better at a fast rate but what's even more exciting is the rate at which this channel has been growing lately I wanted to take a quick moment to recognize this and thank each and every one of you for helping the channel grow and being part of this amazing journey with the channel as we discuss and discover new things about EVs and technology we also have a new patron on board who just recently became a fully charged Ivysaur member so a shout out to Louise ice Porou welcome onboard and thank you for your support you are amazing by becoming a patron you're not just getting your name in one of my videos but you will also gain access to evey source exclusive content and get your name highlighted in a Vsauce disco channel which by the way is free for everyone to access this version of support will ultimately help the channel grow and provide more and even better content to you the viewers so if you would like to show more support for the channel and see your name on the show and have it mispronounced by me consider becoming a patron today also you can find me on Facebook and Twitter for more discussions about these topics thanks for watching and remember to keep charging ahead and I'll catch you in the next one stay safe and take care [Music] you [Music]

Channel: EV Source

Views: 48,241

Rating: 4.9415712 out of 5

Keywords: tesla, telsa battery, ultracapacitor, ultra capacitor, tesla ultracapacitor, tesla supercapacitor, tesla ultra capacitor, tesla super capacitor, electric car, tesla battery breakthrough, graphene supercapacitor 2020, graphene battery technology, batteries and ultracapacitors, batteries and supercapacitors, graphene supercapacitor battery, maxwell technologies, tesla maxwell battery technology, tesla maxwell supercapacitors, Tesla battery breakthrough, regenerative braking

Id: 3ni0T6yxJ_U

Length: 13min 51sec (831 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 26 2020