評論
打印
Science & technology
科技板塊
Electric cars
電動汽車
Pump up the voltage!
加大電壓
Electric vehicles which operate at 800v can be recharged in half the time
800v電動汽車充電時可以節(jié)省一半的時間
Electric vehicles (EVS) are becoming commoner. Some 750,000 of them were sold in the first quarter of 2021 according to JATO Dynamics, a British consultancy. JATO reckons EVS now account for just over 4% of new-car sales, up from 2% in the same quarter last year. Yet many potential buyers still suffer from "range anxiety", a wariness about having to interrupt a long journey while an EV's battery is recharged. The good news is that the time required to do this is about to be slashed.
電動汽車(EVS)變得越來越普遍。據(jù)英國咨詢公司JATO Dynamics透露，2021年第一季度(1~3月)電動汽車的銷量在75萬臺左右。據(jù)JATO估計，目前電動汽車在新車銷售中所占比例略高于4%，高于去年同期的2%。然而，許多潛在買家仍有“里程焦慮”，即電動汽車在跑長途時需要中斷行程進行充電。好消息是，充電所需時間將大大縮短。
Most EVS operate at 400 volts (400v). But a number of producers and their component suppliers are now gearing up to introduce 800v drive systems. Higher voltages supply the same amount of power with less current, which means electric cables can be made lighter—the consequent weight saving helping to increase a vehicle's range, says Christoph Gillen, a technology director for GKN Automotive, a British components group which recently announced that it is accelerating its development of 800v drive systems. As most cabling is made from copper, the price of which has been soaring, this should also save carmakers money.
大多數(shù)電動汽車在400伏(400v)電壓下工作。但許多生產(chǎn)商及其零部件供應(yīng)商現(xiàn)在正準備引進800v驅(qū)動系統(tǒng)。GKN汽車公司的技術(shù)總監(jiān)克里斯托夫·吉倫表示，更高的電壓以更小的電流提供相同的功率，這意味著電纜可以做得更輕，由此產(chǎn)生的重量減輕有助于增加車輛的行駛里程。該公司最近宣布正在加速其800v驅(qū)動系統(tǒng)的開發(fā)。由于大多數(shù)電纜都是由銅制成的，而銅價一直在飆升，這也為汽車制造商節(jié)省了資金。
What drivers are most likely to notice, though, according to Dr Gillen, is that vehicles with 800v drive systems will be able to make greater use of some of the latest fast chargers. For instance, Ionity, a German company backed by a number of carmakers, is building a network of 350kw fast chargers across Europe. These automatically optimise charging speed to the maximum that a vehicle can handle. Using one of these, an EV with an 800v system will be able to recharge about twice as quickly as a similar vehicle with a 400v system.
不過，吉倫博士表示，最可能引起司機們注意的是，裝有800v驅(qū)動系統(tǒng)的汽車能夠更好地使用一些最新的快速充電器。例如，由多家汽車制造商支持的德國公司Ionity正在全歐洲建設(shè)一個350千瓦的快速充電網(wǎng)絡(luò)，能夠自動優(yōu)化充電速度至該車可承載的最大充電速度。若使用其中一種，配備800v系統(tǒng)的電動汽車的充電速度會是配備400v系統(tǒng)的同類汽車的兩倍。
Fast chargers are also more efficient. All chargers take electricity from the grid, which uses an alternating current (AC). When an EV is plugged into a standard charging point, its systems convert AC into direct current (DC), which is what a battery needs to store electricity. Fast chargers bypass the vehicle's converter, using their own beefier bits of kit to pump a DC charge directly into the battery.
快速充電器也變得更有效率。所有的充電器都從電網(wǎng)中獲取電能，而電網(wǎng)使用的是交流電。當電動汽車插入標準充電點時，其系統(tǒng)將交流電轉(zhuǎn)換為電池存儲電力所需要的直流電(DC)。快速充電器繞過車輛的轉(zhuǎn)換器，使用自己的強大套件直接將直流電注入電池。
譯文由可可原創(chuàng)，僅供學(xué)習(xí)交流使用，未經(jīng)許可請勿轉(zhuǎn)載。
