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Battery charging

Stop along the road and exchange your empty car battery with a full one? Take a 45 minute break to charge the car in the middle of a long journey? Advancements in electric batteries present interesting possibilities when you “fill your tank” in the future.

Rapid charging depends on access to a high-capacity electricity supply – and demands thick cables. It is a matter of getting as much power as possible into the battery as quickly as possible. Rapid charge makes it possible to substantially increase the electric car’s radius – Tesla claims that its new electric car can be charged in 45 minutes. A well-developed network of rapid-charge bases will require an upgrading of the electricity grid in many areas, not least in the vicinity of shops and restaurants. It is likely that car owners will pay part of the bill for updating the electricity grid through pay-as-you-go arrangements at the charging stations.

The car battery as an electricity supplier is another exciting concept. When the electricity grid is updated to a so-called smart grid – the grid of the future – all units coupled to the network will be able both to collect and deliver electricity.  In other words, when you plug in your car at night, the battery system will receive information about supply and demand; it can sell electricity when there is high demand and high prices, such as in the morning, and buy when it is cheap, such as in the middle of the night.

Battery exchange is also among the suggestions to ensure continuous power. It takes a little time to charge up a car, so one solution could be to stop at an automatic exchange station where the low battery is simply taken out and replaced with a loaded one. Better Place has gone the furthest with this idea, and the company is demonstrating the technology in Denmark and Israel. Battery exchange will require that all cars using this technology will need to have compatible batteries. This can easily be achieved by setting industry-wide standards.