On Jul 27, 2014, at 12:49 AM, brucedp5 via EV <ev@lists.evdl.org> wrote:
> In Tesla’s defense, Straubel says that the current 120-kW Supercharger > “seemed pretty crazy even 10 years ago” when conventional chargers delivered > under 10kW. So, maybe this theoretical 720 kW Supercharger is possible…in > time. > > But what’s the work-around solution for the size and heft of the cable? We > don’t see one. Do you? Oh, that's easy. If you want to go the science fiction route: superconductors. Massive hunks of copper at the plug coupled to a needle-thin ultracold wire of exotic material in a well-insulated sheath of circulating liquid nitrogen / helium / whatever. The engineering would be crazy. A quench event could be quite dramatic, but presumably safety mechanisms would shut down the current long before the temperature reached the critical point. A coupling that conducted electricity but not heat would, I'm sure, also be quite the challenge. And the overall system efficiency, what with the energy needed to circulate the insanely-cold coolant and all, would suck. But if you didn't care about any of that and have unlimited funds to throw at it, it shouldn't be a problem to create a megawatt electric "gas" pump that operates like today's hydrocarbon ones. Or, back here on planet Earth, you could go a much more practical route: just support the massive copper cable with some swinging cantilever arms. Many gas pumps already have a simple variation on this theme; see this stock photo for an example: http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/x/modern-gas-pump-10267440.jpg Take all the weight off it, and it's...well...weightless. Worst case? Just have an industrial robot plug the cable in. Pull your car up, stay inside the car for five minutes if you don't feel like getting out, and pull away when the signals it's done by re-enabling drive control. It'd be the return of full-service "gas" stations, but without the pimply-faced teenagers. Cheers, b& -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 801 bytes Desc: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20140727/6bf4ffcf/attachment.pgp> _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
