So it looks like the electric Touran will represent openinverter on this years e-cannonball, a race from Moers to Munich which is a distance of over 600 km.
Very happy to take part!
Now I do anticipate that the charging infrastructure will get quite a shakedown at 70 competitors. As we know triple chargers can either charge on CHAdeMO or CCS not both. But they can serve the 43 kW AC output simultaneously
So my first strategic request: could people lent their Tesla chargers (or in fact any 3-phase charger) to me? Maybe even a Chinese CHAdeMO box? The actual race will take part on 25th of September.
If you can't get the Tesla chargers, you could build a 43kW 3 phase charger out of two prius gen3 inverters. The budget is completely dependent on how cheap you can find the non-Yaris/Auris/C ones that have 400V dcbus1 capacitors.
I have a Gen2 inverter handy plus the inductor and IPM from another Gen2 inverter. And I have a Gen3 Prius inverter. So the last one alone should get me how many amps? I guess we have a current limit for the inductor, not a power limit. So if it's 20 kW@200V it would be close to 40 kW @ 400V, right?
To my understanding (I could quite likely be wrong) that the limiting factor is always going to be DC bus current so I would think that a gen3 would be capable of at least 40kw as it's 27kw to start with and the voltage drop will be 600v lots to 350to400 instead of 200v. Also you could make a rich man's charger from gen2 parts easily. It's also noting that the cap can be cut off on a Yaris inverter, As they are stupidly cheap. I can offer my mess of Yaris inverter (cut of cap badly) if it's any use to you as parts or you want to add a cap to it (Im using a Prius one now).
Edit:
Be careful of the triple chargers. At least in Ireland I have seen a few that drop their AC output current when someone is on DC.
Dang... That explains why some of the chargers in the UK seem to charge less for AC 3phase than DC (there are quite a few poping up in UK that have a AC socket on the side for 22kw 3phase that charge less for AC than DC).
I think it's going to be a case of get as many charging standards on the car as you can so hopefully at least 1 will work.
Rule 1 of EV Club is don't buy a rust bucket....
Which rule does everyone forget
The winning strategy would probably be to stay ahead of everyone right from the start and charge using the highest power CCS chargers. I don't think the Touran is quite set up for that battery wise though. You'd need something that can take in 150kW for let's say 10 minutes. Then you could come ahead of many of the 100k€ production cars.
EDIT: If you made a pack out of the chinese 66160 lithium titanate oxide cells, let's say 150 cells would give you 345V nominal, 13.8kWh, 180kg and a maximum charging power of 276kW at a price of maybe 5000€. Get a sponsor? Not a good idea actually, you'd have to stop at almost every charger. I guess just a huge battery to cover the entire 600km without stopping would actually be the best strategy. What's the smallest car that can carry two model 3 75kWh batteries?
Yes true, but I don't want to ruin my pack
The Prius fast charger sounds like a good idea. I still have a large heat sink and a nice enclosure left over. It will be an air cooled design because it weighs less. Of course I can't fit any (decent) input filtering...
Pictures later.
EDIT: the idea is merely to be charging at all if all DC chargers are occupied instead of not charging.
I'm back home from e-cannonball and it was a great experience!
We (Kerstin and Marc who I met only 2 weeks before) drove 360 km from Kassel to Berlin with 2 charge stops. First one was a bit cringy because only days before I had changed the CHAdeMO detection logic. Basically the VCU measures the proximity signal that is should be shorted to GND. But it turns out on some chargers it's not. Alright, so compiled a software with the old detection (detect that inverter is off) and off we charged.
We figured that we shouldn't drain the battery below like 30% because the low voltage results in higher currents both when driving and charging - resulting in higher temperature - resulting in derating. Plus there is more margin for error if a charger is not working.
On Friday the car spawned quite some interest at the exhibition. On Saturday we had to get up at 5:30 because we had to drive to the start first and then start at 7. I was super tired and was glad I didn't have to drive the first stint. The trip to Munich was absolutely perfect except driving against head wind all of the time. So consumption was a bit high (169 Wh/km). We charged 5 times but 4 times would have been sufficient. All chargers worked and we always arrived at a free charger and then minutes later cars queued up behind us
Kerstin in Marc were really delighted with the "battery cooling" (aka being lax about battery packaging). Apparently in the actual Leaf once you have heated up the battery it takes almost a day to cool down. We lost a good 15-20°C in rather warm weather between the charge stops and never bumped into temp derating. The battery bricks are located in the air stream of the former exhaust tunnel and are only sealed off to the outside world with thin sheets of foamed plastic.
After 7 hours of driving and 2 hours of charging we reached Munich after 570 km. I was delighted to see that "muehlpower" had made his way from Fürstenfeldbrück (20 km away) and we had a good chat (and thanks for the burger ).
We didn't win any sort of price, not sure why.
Finally yesterday we drove back home to Kassel which was another 500 km. That time it went semi-good. We actually met Mathieu with his Mustang at the first charge stop. He was using the full 43 kW AC power of a triple charger and the charger didn't allow us to start a CHAdeMO session in parallel.
So we tried to continue to the next one but the road was closed to reach it. So we continued to another one which stopped charging at 60% and didn't want to restart. The CHAdeMO inlet was quite warm so I suspect some chargers don't like that. From then on everything went smooth, except Kerstin forgetting her phone at the last charge stop, adding another 20 km to the trip .
Up to the last charge stop we had achieved 145 Wh/km. From there to home (80 km) I really beat it up the Kassel hills with 140 kph which only raised consumption slightly to 155 Wh/km.
Over all we had a fun time being surrounded by EV enthusiasts for 3 days. Kerstin and Marc were both entertaining and skilled, so great team members.
I was also delighted with Touran performance because it didn't cause headaches and compared rather well to production EVs.
EDIT: we encountered another 100 kW CHAdeMO charger. I could have let it charge at 70 kW but since Nissans relays are rated 150A for 2 minutes I limited to 150A and later to 130A. Still we saw a 56 kW peak
tmotion wrote: ↑Mon Sep 27, 2021 9:13 pm
Very Nice! Looks like fun. Also nice to see that slowly these 100kw chademo chargers become available (before being phased out again in favor of CCS).
Yes, it does itch to upgrade the relays and cables to be able to charge at 70 kW
MiBa wrote: ↑Tue Sep 28, 2021 10:25 am
@Johannes
It seems that they've taken the distance [km] from your odometer. I slight variation will cause some extra km ... ?
Yes, the distance was weighed too high in my opinion. I think BOSolar drove the exact same route but had much less distance. Odometer lag FTW basically
MiBa wrote: ↑Tue Sep 28, 2021 10:25 am
17 kWh/100km is an excellent consumption - compliment!
Thanks but isn't even so good. We had headwind all day, all find turbines were facing away from us. I wonder what the consumption would have been with Mathieus driving style (85 kph behind trucks - also called Laudecruise by its inventor Holger Laudeley )
MiBa wrote: ↑Tue Sep 28, 2021 10:25 am
The winner in the "heroes class", the BOSolar Car had 4 kWh/100km - Wow !!
Yes, that is amazing. They use VESC and hub motors.
(there are quite a few poping up in UK that have a AC socket on the side for 22kw 3phase that charge less for AC than DC).
Not a good idea actually, you'd have to stop at almost every charger. I guess just a huge battery to cover the entire 600km without stopping would actually be the best strategy. What's the smallest car that can carry two model 3 75kWh batteries?
