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Volkswagen has kicked off the new year by showing off plans for a Mobile Charging Station, which it reckons could be a solution for short-term on-demand electric car charging.
Basically, the MCS is like a gigantic, portable, battery pack - a gigantic version of the pocket-sized power banks we all use to keep our smartphones topped up with juice. With a charged capacity of 360kWh, Volkswagen says that it has enough power to charge up as many as 15 electric cars before it too needs to be charged up. Needless to say, it's been designed around the needs of Volkswagen's new I.D. electric car family, the first model of which - the I.D. hatchback - launches later this year with an expected one-charge range of 500km and a price close to that of a Golf diesel's.
It's also a way to store power from alternative energy supplies, such as wind or solar power, and Volkswagen says that it can juice up a 28kWh electric car battery in just 17 minutes. Plug it into the mains, and the giant battery perpetually recharges itself, making it an ideal way to store energy generated by wind or solar power.
The first of these charging stations will be set up in Volkswagen's home town of Wolfsburg, in Germany, later this year, and it's been designed to provide both temporary charging points for cities and towns as they await the expansion of electric car infrastructure, as well as providing mobile charging points for big public events, music festivals, and so on. Four vehicles can be charged at one time - two on DC fast charging, and two on AC 'slow' charging.
Thomas Schmall, Chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen Group Components, says: "The mobile charging stations are a decisive step toward an efficient network of charging points. They can be set up anywhere as required - with or without connection to the power supply. This flexibility enables a completely new approach for the rapid expansion of the charging infrastructure. Cities can, for example, find out the most suitable places for a permanent charging point before making major investments in developing the network. In addition, it will be possible to set up a large number of charging stations temporarily - exactly when and where they are needed."
"Our mobile charging stations offer a further crucial advantage," says Mark Möller, Head of Technical Development at Volkswagen Group Components. "It is only when an electric car is charged with sustainably generated power that it can claim Co2-neutral mobility. Our charging station is the first to offer the possibility of temporarily storing sustainably generated power." For example, the charging station can be charged specifically with solar or wind energy, which is then transmitted to the electric vehicles during charging. Technically, the mobile charging column is based on the battery pack of the Volkswagen Group's Modular Electric Toolkit (MEB). On the one hand, this offers the advantage of quick scalability and, on the other hand, the charging station allows batteries from electric vehicles to have a second life. This is because a battery loses charging capacity over time. If a vehicle battery has a defined, reduced residual capacity, it is exchanged. If this battery subsequently passes a thorough analysis, it can be reused in a mobile charging station.