How about breaking up a road journey to grab a coffee and recharge the batteries? The car batteries, that is.
A new product launch will help assuage the fear that electric cars may not get the driver to the destination, also known as ‘range anxiety’ as Gigaom puts it.
Created by Switzerland-based Nation-E, the Mobile Angel Car® is a system designed to charge electric cars when they run out of energy. To design the system, the company drew from its expertise in large scale battery management systems.
“The principle is simple, yet effective and reminds of first-aid break-down service, where a big carrier with an over-size battery recharges a stranded vehicle via a tube, so that the stranded vehicle can continue on his path towards a nearby charging station” says Nation-E.
The unit carries a 230 volt charger that can fill up a battery with 2 to 3 kWh in less than 15 minutes, or another 20 miles of driving. A communications system lets the driver know how much energy will be necessary and how long it will take to do it.
Gigaom raises a question, though, as to how well Angel Cars will do, as “technology to quickly charge up electric cars on the go isn’t proprietary and many other companies have developed on board fast charging technology”. But the industry blog highlights that the idea that “tow trucks, AAA services and the like, will have to add on EV battery charging to their emergency road side assistance services, is spot-on”.
