Vary anxiousness stays a key concern amongst motorists who’re on the fence with regard to adopting totally electrical autos into their lives, and even for seasoned customers of battery electrical autos, longer journeys out of city in urban-use EVs the place charging amenities are scarce will take extra ahead planning.
In some situations, charging factors aren’t accessible to determine into mentioned plans, and that’s the place back-up measures are required. When a petroleum or diesel-engined automobile has run out, or is about to expire of gasoline with no refuelling station shut sufficient, a jerry can is usually the reply.
The place most individuals have taken on new abilities and craft by means of varied levels of our pandemic-driven lockdown, electrical automobile fanatic Datuk Abdul Ghaffar Ramli devised a type of flat-battery rescue for BEVs – the EV Jerry Can, starting work on this mission in June this yr, and totally self-funded.
First coming into authorities service in 1979, Ghaffar joined the Tun Ismail Atomic Analysis Centre (PUSPATI) as a analysis officer. He was then appointed the top of nuclear know-how programme in 1984. Ghaffar held the submit of director on the defence science and know-how centre, then turn into director-general of the science and know-how analysis institute for defence (STRIDE) in 2002, till retirement in 2013.
Primarily a “very massive powerbank” for electrical autos, the EV Jerry Can prototype was offered just about to an EV fanatics’ group in a video name. The unit takes the type of a case roughly the dimensions of an airline carry-on trolley bag.
That is housed inside a sequence of 32650 LFP (lithium-iron-phosphate) battery cells, and a 500 W exterior charger will recharge the EV Jerry Can to full capability (2.4 kWh) in about 4 to 5 hours, mentioned Ghaffar. Connectivity to the electrical automobile is with the CEE 16 protocol, which then connects to a conveyable EVSE and both a Sort 1 or Sort 2 connector, relying on the automobile’s want. Ghaffar’s Renault Zoe EV makes use of a Sort 2 connector.
Regardless of the battery pack being rated at 2.4 kWh, Ghaffar says he has not been in a position to squeeze the utmost from the pack resulting from some dud cells. Nevertheless, early measurements point out AC to DC conversion at 82% effectivity, which ought to yield round 2 kWh. With the Zoe’s power consumption fee of 140 Wh per km, the two kWh supplied by the Jerry Can ought to present an extra 14 to fifteen km of vary.
Granted, 14 or 15 km isn’t a lot, and actually is meant to get you to a extra substantial port of replenishment. Trying forward, Ghaffar is engaged on his second, supplementary pack which is able to use 16 prismatic-cell batteries, as a substitute of the 128 cylindrical 32650 battery cells of the current unit, which weighs 35.4 kg.
The second battery pack won’t have its personal inverter, and as a substitute pairs with that of the prevailing battery pack. Ghaffar determined to cap the second battery pack’s capability to 2.5 kWh within the pursuits of weight saving to twenty-eight kg, as a substitute of an earlier 4 or 5 kWh capability goal that may have weighed 37 kg.
This may theoretically give 4.9 kWh in complete battery capability, and primarily double the 14 to fifteen km further vary to round 30 km with the second pack. Nevertheless, this must be consumed not , however sequentially – because the voltages in every pack could also be totally different, the packs should be used separately for security, says Ghaffar.
With prices of creating this battery pack tallying RM3,500 to this point, will this ultimately go on sale as an end-user product? “I don’t intend to commercialise it, though I’ve talked to some corporations to see if they’re eager,” mentioned Ghaffar, who can be contemplating renting out the packs or providing them to automobile restoration corporations for roadside emergency charging of EVs. It “can be cheaper than towing them,” he mentioned.
