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GBatteries (YC W14) let you charge your car as quickly as visiting the pump

techcrunch.com

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Re: GBatteries (YC W14) let you charge your car as quickly as visiting the pump

#51

Post by dkoston »

timsher wrote: post #39
dkoston wrote: post #11

476mi/h of charging isn’t gorundbreaking. Aston Martin, Tesla and Porsche already charge at those speeds or faster. https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1118575_gm-working-on-u... I believe their “secret sauce” is allowing existing packs which charge slower to get “up to speed”. If so, that’s a pretty limited market as it’s likely that within a few years, all EVs sold will charge faster than the listed speeds. They’l…

Hi! I'm one of the founders at GBatteries - I’ve partially answered this in another comment, so will copy paste portions. We've demonstrated 5 min to 50% charge, 10 min to 100% charge - below is a demo that we’ve done at CES 2019, and that we’re now exhibiting at the Detroit Auto show demonstrating this. [Video here: https://youtu.be/kSLrqR4TfnU Note: Charging times can vary by ~1 minute here and there, because the a…

Thanks for the added clarity. Being able to charge from below 50% without damaging cycle life is huge. Would be great to see some cycle life charts showing GBatteries vs traditional chargers.

One of the other challenges you may face is the lack of consumer knowledge about how charging affects cycle life. Since consumers tend to charge batteries in ways that dramatically reduce cycles, this is potentially huge.

Figuring out how to create demand from consumers will be very important as OEMs don’t really have any motivation here. Cycle life isn’t published nor really considered by consumers when they buy devices with rechargeable batteries.

Re: GBatteries (YC W14) let you charge your car as quickly as visiting the pump

#52

Post by bostonpete »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #41
timsher wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's correct, we're not able to fast charge at these levels without approval from the OEM because of the limits they have built. We need to either be integrated inside of the vehicle, or on the charger but have the vehicles "approval" for charging at these higher rates, as at Level 3 and up it's DC to the pack.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but this seems like a B2B/acquisition play masquerading as a B2C play; your value (if proven) is a superior battery management system (versus the OEM's or a supplier's) and charge controller for non-Tesla EVs (hinging on the battery pack instrumentation architecture).

Why do you say it's masquerading as B2C? It seems like straight up B2B to me...

Re: GBatteries (YC W14) let you charge your car as quickly as visiting the pump

#53

Post by amluto »

timsher wrote: post #29
floatrock wrote: post #20

Super skeptical here, or at least the wording is misleading as hell. > The product allows users to charge a 60kWh EV battery pack with 119 miles of range in 15 minutes as compared to 15 miles in 15 minutes today. > The technology works with off-the-shelf lithium ion batteries and existing fast charge infrastructure by integrating via a patented self-contained adapter on a car charge port First read says that they're…

Hi! I'm one of the founders at GBatteries, please let me try to clear that up. We've demonstrated 5 min to 50% charge, 10 min to 100% - I’ll edit this to include a demo that we’ve done at CES 2019, and that we’re now exhibiting at the Detroit Auto show demonstrating. [EDIT] Video here: https://youtu.be/kSLrqR4TfnU Note: Charging times can vary by ~1 minute here and there, because the algorithm is adaptive and charact…

What are you doing differently? Unless you’re pulsing your charging or otherwise varying the current rapidly, then it seems that all you can really do is vary the current as a function of temperature, state of charge, and maybe some other variables. At the end of the day, if you’re going to deliver energy e in time t, you need average power e/t, and the fancier your curve, the more your peak power will exceed your average.

(And if you don’t want to overhead the cables or the connector, you care about current squared, giving you an added incentive to charge at near constant current or perhaps to charge some cells at a different rate than others.

What’s the trick here?

Re: GBatteries (YC W14) let you charge your car as quickly as visiting the pump

#55

Post by jartelt »

Are there going to be any issues with peak demand charges from utilities making fast charging cost prohibitive? I have to imagine that pulling that much power from the grid will either be very expensive or will require some grid upgrades to prevent issues.

Re: GBatteries (YC W14) let you charge your car as quickly as visiting the pump

#57

Post by pkulak »

floatrock wrote: post #20

Super skeptical here, or at least the wording is misleading as hell. > The product allows users to charge a 60kWh EV battery pack with 119 miles of range in 15 minutes as compared to 15 miles in 15 minutes today. > The technology works with off-the-shelf lithium ion batteries and existing fast charge infrastructure by integrating via a patented self-contained adapter on a car charge port First read says that they're…

VAG is releasing a car shortly (March) that can charge at 150 Kw, and has deployed some charges in Europe and the US that can put out that much power. Last I heard, the iPace is listed as accepting 100 kW, but no one has seen over 80 yet.

Re: GBatteries (YC W14) let you charge your car as quickly as visiting the pump

#58

Post by toomuchtodo »

bostonpete wrote: post #52
toomuchtodo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but this seems like a B2B/acquisition play masquerading as a B2C play; your value (if proven) is a superior battery management system (versus the OEM's or a supplier's) and charge controller for non-Tesla EVs (hinging on the battery pack instrumentation architecture).

Why do you say it's masquerading as B2C? It seems like straight up B2B to me...

The techcrunch article tone makes it sound like they're pitching charge rate increases directly to consumers. That doesn't seem to be the case based on the in-thread discussion, but how techcrunch made it sound.

Re: GBatteries (YC W14) let you charge your car as quickly as visiting the pump

#59

Post by pkulak »

timsher wrote: post #29
floatrock wrote: post #20

Super skeptical here, or at least the wording is misleading as hell. > The product allows users to charge a 60kWh EV battery pack with 119 miles of range in 15 minutes as compared to 15 miles in 15 minutes today. > The technology works with off-the-shelf lithium ion batteries and existing fast charge infrastructure by integrating via a patented self-contained adapter on a car charge port First read says that they're…

Hi! I'm one of the founders at GBatteries, please let me try to clear that up. We've demonstrated 5 min to 50% charge, 10 min to 100% - I’ll edit this to include a demo that we’ve done at CES 2019, and that we’re now exhibiting at the Detroit Auto show demonstrating. [EDIT] Video here: https://youtu.be/kSLrqR4TfnU Note: Charging times can vary by ~1 minute here and there, because the algorithm is adaptive and charact…

The battery is the most expensive part of an electric car. If you have come up with something that MITMs the signaling between my car and the charger, causing the charger to deliver more power than my car says it can handle, that's a huge problem. First off, there's no way this won't immediately invalidate every warranty on my car, and secondly, why should I trust you over the company that manufactured my car and its battery?

Re: GBatteries (YC W14) let you charge your car as quickly as visiting the pump

#60

Post by taneq »

amluto wrote: post #53
timsher wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! I'm one of the founders at GBatteries, please let me try to clear that up. We've demonstrated 5 min to 50% charge, 10 min to 100% - I’ll edit this to include a demo that we’ve done at CES 2019, and that we’re now exhibiting at the Detroit Auto show demonstrating. [EDIT] Video here: https://youtu.be/kSLrqR4TfnU Note: Charging times can vary by ~1 minute here and there, because the algorithm is adaptive and charact…

What are you doing differently? Unless you’re pulsing your charging or otherwise varying the current rapidly, then it seems that all you can really do is vary the current as a function of temperature, state of charge, and maybe some other variables. At the end of the day, if you’re going to deliver energy e in time t, you need average power e/t, and the fancier your curve, the more your peak power will exceed your av…

And to add to these questions - what are the consequences for increasing charging rates? Tesla has made some public statements regarding fast(er) charging (specifically targeting the 350kW Ionity chargers) to the effect that pushing that much power will degrade the batteries far faster for little gain.

Edit:

> Our technology is able to decrease the irreversible chemical reactions that happen during charging, so that the same batteries can be charged fast without compromising cycle life.

This seems to imply it's doing something to the battery chemistry? Maybe a brief pulse of high-rate discharge every now and then to help balance things out?

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