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Comment by theluketaylor | Hacker News Reader

The feature list is fantastic, especially since Ford leaned into the EV-ness with powering the home and so many outlets in the bed and frunk.

They came so close to nailing it, but the charge curve is simply not acceptable. 41 minutes for 15-80% is way, way too long. Hyundai Ionic 5 is the same starting price and is close to 20 minutes. The F-150 has a much bigger battery, but that should also mean it can maintain the a high charge rate for longer before tapering. Ford not using 800V is going to come back to haunt them.

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800v adds some complications, if the pack is 800v you need a boost converter to charge from 400v or the pack needs to dynamically reconfigure with contactors or something.

On the Porsche Taycan which has an 800v battery you have to pay extra for full 150kw charging on 400v because of the voltage booster cost, the standard booster only allows 50kw and there is some loss in the conversion you will pay for.

Same issues if you go the other way and have a 400v battery with 800v charging except buck vs boost.

800v chargers can't be fed directly by 480vac which adds complexity and cost so there are very few at this time I believe, most chargers will be 400v and limited to 150kw anyway.

800v is probably the future but its kinda chicken and egg right now, I see why they went 400v.

All ElectrifyAmerica chargers in the US are 800v though, and they're basically 95% of the non-Tesla market these days.

Are you sure? They clearly state not all are 350kw but they seem to obfuscate how many are, it would be nice to know, they should have a map filter specifically for it:

https://www.electrifyamerica.com/how-ev-charging-works/

"Electrify America stations have CCS chargers with varying speeds, ranging from 50kW up to 350kW. "

"Our 50kW to 350kW chargers will be available at charging stations near highways, and 50kW to 150kW chargers will be available in metropolitan areas."

Anyone know how many 350kw chargers they actually have deployed?

Are the lower power ones still 800v capable?

You can go on plugshare and filter for 200 kW+ EA and see there are a huge number of sites. As far as I know every interstate site has one 350 kW cabinet.

I'm pretty sure the 150 kW cabinets are 400v. If you're there in person you can check since the inputs and outputs are labelled by law.

Nice site, only about 250 total, Wyoming, South and North Dakota have none, closest one near me in Florida is about 40 miles away.

Is amazing how fast the infrastructure is going in. Seems much easier to build charging stations than gas stations so long as the grid can hold up.

Certainly a lot less environmental studies needed for a DC fast charger than burying a tank full of toxic liquid. Depending on the jurisdiction getting a large enough grid connection can take some time.

EA's rate of installation is really impressive. Their stability is getting a lot better too. Curious to see what happens when the dieselgate money runs out though. How much of their operations are self sustaining and how much is relying on the VW fines? Hard to tell from the outside. The roughly similar organization in Europe is Ionity and they charge an astonishing amount for charging, so I'm curious if the prices have to jump a couple years down the road.

Tesla Supercharger V3 can get to 250kW at 400V. The charge cable is liquid cooled due to the massive current which does add some cost.

V2 Supercharger limitation does appear to be the heat in the cable and connector. We know the battery can accept more current but it is limited due to the cable.

CCS chargers above 50kw are usually liquid cooled as well. Above 200amps it really needs it for manageable cable size and CCS goes to 500 amps while Tesla goes to 800 amps.

CCS goes to 1000v too which is theoretically 500kw.

3x fixed ration voltage boost is from 3 phase 480AC to 831DC is currently less than $100 in parts with modern electronics.

480/sqrt(3) = 277

277 * 3 = 831

I don't know why they make a big deal out of it.

Really a $100 for 900 amp input 450 amp output boost DC power supply?

The magic of silicon carbide. Remember, having a 3 phase input means you have 1/3 the current per phase

Though, I will concede on the price estimate. At 250kw, you get 180A per phase, which is still outside of range for commodity parts. And at 350kw, switches which can handle 250A cost few hundred dollars each.

Alternatively, you can use a 3 phase transformer to 1400V, and rectify to 800DC.

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