China State Grid constructed a charging bay for electric vehicles that can power up e-Buses for only 10 to 15 minutes. Located at the Xiaoying Public Transit bus terminal in Beijing is the new, ultra-fast EV charging station.
An ultra-fast EV charging bay was recently brought online in Beijing, China is presently considered the largest electric vehicle charging station in the world. The new charging station is at the Xiaoying Public Transit bus terminal in the Chaoyang district. The bus terminal is the home of 25 EV chargers operating at 360 kilowatts and five EV chargers operating at 90 kilowatts. In addition, all 30 chargers can possibly work at the same time.
The ultra-fast charging station covers an area of 26,500 square-meters with its structures covering an area of 1,575 square-meters. The State Grid Corporation of China, which is the largest electric utility company in the world, built the charging station along with the bus terminal. The charging bay intends to recharge new Foton electric buses with installed Microvast batteries used on transit route 13 in Beijing, China.
A press release stated that the route 13 fleet has improved efficiency in operations after the conversion to an ultra-fast charging scheme. In addition, this technology will be reducing Beijing's greenhouse gas and carbon emissions. Each electric bus takes around 10 to 15 minutes to fully recharge its batteries. Charging the Foton e-Buses might be two to three times a day during bus driver breaks, with several route loops in between.
In comparison, battery swap systems adopted by Beijing earlier in an experiment of improving electric buses with slow-charging battery systems along with operations and efficiencies, the new ultra-fast charging battery-plus-charger system needs no investment or large storage spaces. Extra batteries are no longer necessary and high-cost facilities for robot-automated battery pack swapping setups are not needed anymore. This brings an obvious advantage to customers and companies with more rapid returns on investments.
Hopefully, Europe and United States will consider this kind of technological advancement on a widespread of electric vehicles over the next few years.
