While working to contribute to the next scenario of a greener and much more sustainable mobility in the hands of electric cars, the automotive sector is also fully focused on what is the ecosystem of these vehicles. These are, among others, fast charging systems and infrastructures, which allow greater and better access to them.
Fast charging, a more efficient solution
The sale of electric vehicles in Spain has grown significantly in recent months. Trend that is expected to increase in the short-medium term. Therefore, when buying an electric car, it is essential to take into account one of its critical points: the charge.
Because, currently, and according to data extracted from a report prepared by Deloitte, Spain needs about 90,000 public access charging points in 2025 and 145,000 in 2030. This limitation power new solutions for community and individual garages.
However, the true range of these vehicles and the time it takes to charge still worries buyers. For this reason, and with the passage of time, it has been done to establish new solutions so that these can be viable. The result has been the development of new systems that make recharging them much more efficient, especially in terms of time.
As such, and although in general we can count between 5 and 8 hours to carry out this process, neither can we speak of a single recharge time since several high speeds are recognized. One of them is the fast charging system for electric cars, a very favorable function that drastically reduces these times.
Types of loads
As we mentioned, today there are different types of load for these cars, which provide higher or lower speeds. They do it from super slow or mode 1, which barely reaches 10 amps and takes around twelve hours to complete, to ultra fast. This is formed by means of supercapacitors, making it possible to do it in five minutes. They are as follows:
- Mode 1.
- Slow recharge.
- Optimal slow or semi fast.
- Recharge fast.
- Super fast.
- Recharge ultra fast.
Given this, the battery and its capacity are key to understanding why some vehicles take longer to charge than others. It is an obvious reason: with larger batteries (with more capacity), they last longer and require fewer recharges. But once it runs out it will take longer to get back to 100%. Manufacturers are currently working on this point in conjunction with security. The objective is none other than to achieve powerful batteries that allow the vehicle many kilometers of autonomy, in addition to obtaining forms of fast charging even for these large batteries.
This means, at the same time, that the market for this type of vehicle is also marked by the place where the car can be loaded. So that, depending on the location, a different charging point is required. Thus, well located depending on where we are, we can go to both residential and work charging points, private parking lots, on urban roads or, where appropriate, at service stations.
Formats and functions
In the case of the former, they are charging points standard reload, especially at night for times up to 12 hours. They are the ones that are incorporated into single-family houses in buildings. Then, we can also see them in workplaces or in car parks, where both companies and operators are using them the most.
They also occur in the street, but tend to be generally longer than two hours. The most skillful occur in service stations or electric stations. Here they are very fast charges for electricians, currently for times of about 30 minutes.
In this sense, it can be said that we have three slower dispositions and another three faster ones. But, just as we have several charging modes that will end up being more or less satisfactory in a matter of time, technology and its advance have also made it possible for the same infrastructures to have more than one procedure. This causes higher fast charging ranges to be involved in electric cars as well. Or what is the same: when opting for fast recharges, we can do it at different speeds at each faster and faster.
Fast charge
Today motor companies indicate approximate recharge times for their electric models to guide consumers. But that, as a general rule, varies considerably towards the point where we go to initiate these charging methods. Within the six mentioned, there are three fast charging modes for electric ones. The first of them, the fast, is the one that follows the semi-fast or slow recharge.
It is a type that is often widely used in service stations or electric stations. It does so using direct current, with which it is possible to work with figures of up to 400 A. Usually, this is called fast charging because demand 50 kW. This is the one that allows a payload in just over half an hour. For their use, they must have the ChaDeMo or CSS Combo connectors, both powered by the Japanese manufacturers of Nissan, Mitsubishi or Toyota).
Super fast recharge
Although it is true that the three are given with increasing speeds, which leads to much shorter times, we have to say that the three are given as very recognized options for any use. For example, and after the fast one, there is the super fast one, also known as fast-charge.
This is characterized because it fulfills the function at very high powers, here between 44 and 50 kW. In your case, the speed of this charge in the electric ones, with a capacity of 22 to 24 kWh, can be done in just half an hour. In it, it highlights that its average that is the time necessary to recharge approximately 80% of the battery. The most widely used standard connector for this type of recharge is the Japanese CHAdeMO.
Ultra fast recharge
Finally, and with more than outstanding results, depending on the car we can move towards ultra-fast recharges. They are known as Mode 4, the latest and the most innovative. The counterpart of these is that they are considered as such from 50 kWh. Some go up to 130-150 kWh.
However, the higher power ones are still in the experimental phase, due to their recent incorporation. That makes them not so easy to find. Some can be seen in outdoor public use stations such as electric stations, where we can recharge the vehicle during long journeys or in specific situations in which we have little time.
In turn, these are usually seen in electric vehicles with accumulators of the supercapacitor type, batteries than batteries that offer a higher energy density, such as electric buses. They can reach 80% in less than 10 minutes.