But the flexibility they offer could see adoption rates skyrocket.
In many markets, the primary hurdle for electric car adoption is infrastructure, or the lack of it. We won’t plunge money into electric cars due to very real range anxiety, but charging stations won’t be installed unless there’s greater adoption of electric cars. It’s a chicken and egg scenario with no end in sight, at least until automakers start phasing out internal combustion cars and force us into silent-running zero-emissions greenmobiles.
Another frequent issue with the setup of charging stations is the difficulty in predicting the usage. Electric vehicles can be charged anywhere – at work, at home, our when you’re out and about. If you use your EV to commute to-and-from home then it shouldn’t be an issue, because you’ll likely be charging your car at home. But what about possible charging locations at points of interest, or along motorways? Could people be resisting the idea of travelling with their EVs because of a lack of charging stations, and could the availability of one see EV owners going further?
The questions and issues we listed above are among the many that Volkswagen’s new Mobile Charging Station (MCS) aims to solve. This massive tower is not just a transmitter of power, it’s also a power storage solution, keeping up to 360kWh of charge within (or enough to juice up about 15 electric cars). And thanks to DC quick charging of up to 100kW, the average charge time is rated at just 17-minutes.
MCS can be deployed anywhere (that’s what the ‘M’ in ‘MCS’ stands for), with no need for it to be connected to a power supply. Should the brick run dry, Volkswagen can simply swap it out for a charged one. Alternatively, the MCS can be instead charged via a sustainable energy source (like a windmill or a solar panel), and it can then store that power for use later.
“The mobile charging stations can be set up anywhere as required, with or without any connection to the power supply. This flexibility enables a completely new approach for the rapid expansion of charging infrastructure. Cities can for example find the most suitable places for a permanent charging point before making major investments in developing the network. Additionally, it will be possible to set up a large number of charging stations temporarily, exactly when and where they are needed.” — Thomas Schmall, Chairman of the Board, Volkswagen Group Components
So there you have it, folks. A battery to charge your batteries. What we do appreciate enormously though is that the MCS utilises the same battery packs as the ones fitted to Volkswagen’s electric vehicles that are underpinned by the MEB platform. This allows degraded MEB battery cells to be repurposed as charging stations once they’re no longer fit for use in an automobile. This helps increase the sustainability of what would otherwise be environmentally-unfriendly waste, which we like alot.
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