A German industry consortium this week showcased an electric vehicle charging station capable of charging a car in minutes.
The members of the “FastCharge” project — luxury automakers BMW and Porsche, industrial companies Siemens and Phoenix Contact and Dutch EV charging company Allego — said the prototype charging station in Jettingen-Scheppach featured a capacity of 450 kilowatts.
The Allego prototype station provided a Porsche research vehicle with enough charge to travel 100 kilometers in less than three minutes. A BMW research vehicle, the group said, climbed from 10 percent charged to 80 percent charged in 15 minutes.
Siemens developed the energy supply system for the station, while Phoenix Contact produced the charging cables and a specialized wall duct to cool the system.
The charging station’s capacity is three to nine times higher than current fast-charging stations, and can handle up to 920 volts in order to accommodate the higher-voltage EVs of the future, officials said.
“Thanks to high-current, high-voltage charging, the system is suitable for a number of different applications, including fleet charging solutions and, as in this case, charging along highways,” the companies said in a statement.
The system, officials added, can be used currently — free-of-charge — by the electric vehicle type common in Europe. It can charge several vehicles simultaneously, and a charge controller automatically adjusts the output to accommodate different battery systems.
