InstaVolt talks to New Mobility about the future of charging

In recent years, we have seen a great push into a more efficient, cleaner and advanced future in the world of transportation, fueled by ultra low emissions targets, new legislation, the emergence of electric vehicles and suppliers turning their attention to smart infrastructure and future technologies. Now, finally, we are on the tipping point of future mobility.

I speak to the CEO of InstaVolt, Tim Payne, to understand how the industry can aid development in the electric vehicle sector. With a background in energy efficiency, Payne has identified that, although the race for EVs is heating up, there is a serious need for surrounding infrastructure in order to sustain the rapid growth and rollout in years to come. “Looking at the various different charging technologies and where they are being deployed, there are about 11,000 EV charging points in the UK, but 10,000 of these are slow AC triple chargers up to 7kw and only 1,000 rapid DC chargers,” he says.

Payne looked at these figures and the road map for what was likely to happen and tells me that for EVs to become mainstream they first have to achieve a 300 mile range, which means that they will need to have a larger battery capacity. This creates a problem down the line as charging times will significantly increase as batteries increase in size. “Cars will end up charging for 12-15 hours a day, which is no use to anyone,” Payne adds. “As battery range increases, you need to increase the charge rate which leads you to 50kw DC rapid chargers, which we want to increase to 350kw over the next three years. This will keep charge times to a minimum for the increased capacity batteries.”

Read the full story on New Mobility’s website.