Electric Car Charging

Charging forms and infrastructure:

Charging Methods of EV are:
- Battery swapping: this option was available at the beginning of
using EV. Since 2013, all EV were supplied with built-in battery.
- Wireless charging: which involved electromagnetic transform. The
main drawbacks of this option are the time and the efficiency.
- Wired Charging: it is somehow similar to the traditional fuel stations.
However, charging time is a challenge.
Charging Time:
The charging time of an EV depends on:
- Power Level: which expressed in kW, is defined by the voltage and
the current of the charging source. The power level of chargers is
classified into three ranges: Low power range (Slow Charging) from
3.3kW to 7kW. High range (Fast Charging) from 43 kW to 50kW.
Superchargers of 120kW.
- Battery Size: expressed in kWh. Depending on your battery size, the
power level of charging is selected.
- Charging method.
Refueling an internal combustion engine (ICE) takes few minutes only. For
full battery EVs, even fast-charging a battery to 80% will require 20-30
minutes (depending on battery size and fast-charging speed), and slowcharging a EV usually takes multiple hours.
The EVs also lack for the travel range of the normal fuel cars. In average,
the EV has a travel range of 5 to 8 km per 1 kWh. So if you have an EV
with 24 kWh battery and you want to drive all the way between Riyadh
and Dammam, the trip time is not less than 8 hours if no fast charging
stations are available.
What to Improve:
Improvement
Area
Weight
Range
Interrupted Trip
Time
(Refueling/Rechar
ging)

Status

EV

ICE

Solved
Solved
Need
Improvement

2110 Kg
260 mile

2000 Kg
300 mile

the comparison done between Tesla Model S and BMW 7

Circuit Model
Before we discuss modeling, it would be more efficient to to see the car
charging circuit as block diagram:

The shadowed part is the wired charging circuit and it is not within our
scope of this paper.
Now let us study the WPT circuit starting by the transmitter.
Transmitter:
Stage 1: Connecting to the grid. In tis stage the frequency of the grid
supply need to be changed to meet the desired resonance frequency.
Stage 2: Back to Back AC\DC converter. In this stage the of the main
supply will be changed and fed to the transmitter coil.
Stage 3: Coils/Antennas. This is where the power transmission occur which
considered to be the main part of the circuit.
Stage 4: AC\DC converter. Since the battery charges with DC power only.
Stage 5: Load\Battery.
All electric car charging circuits will those five basic stages and the design
differences of one or more stage is represented as new circuit.
So, How does battery chargers differ?
By this question we dont mean to discuss the power electronics involved
in the charger or the controlling circuits because they are not the main
parts of the charger.

Charging the battery

For this aspect, many factors are involved:
- Type of battery: the battery type will affect the charging speed and
the weight and the cost of the car. Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are
currently used in the majority of electric vehicles. Several
manufacturers, including Tesla and Nissan, have invested heavily in
this technology. In LIBs, positively charged lithium ions travel
between the anode and the cathode in the electrolyte. LIBs have a
high cyclability the number of times the battery can be recharged
while still maintaining its efficiency but a low energy density the
amount of energy that can be stored in a unit volume.
Solid-state batteries have solid components. This construction
provides several advantages: no worry of electrolyte leaks or fires
(provided a flame-resistant electrolyte is used), extended lifetime,
decreased need for bulky and expensive cooling mechanisms, and
the ability to operate in an extended temperature range.
German electronics firm Bosch says it will have a solid state battery
on the market by 2020 that will double the range of electric cars at
half the cost of todays batteries.
-

Size\Capacity: this will affect the range of the travel and charging
time.

Charging Method: Constant voltage or constant current. Combined

methods also available.
o Constant Voltage A constant voltage charger is basically a
DC power supply which in its simplest form may consist of a
step down transformer from the mains with a rectifier to
provide the DC voltage to charge the battery. Such simple
designs are often found in cheap car battery chargers. The
lead-acid cells used for cars and backup power systems
typically use constant voltage chargers. In addition, lithiumion cells often use constant voltage systems, although these
usually are more complex with added circuitry to protect both
the batteries and the user safety.
o Constant Current Constant current chargers vary the
voltage they apply to the battery to maintain a constant
current flow, switching off when the voltage reaches the level
of a full charge. This design is usually used for nickel-cadmium
and nickel-metal hydride cells or batteries.
o Taper Current This is charging from a crude unregulated
constant voltage source. It is not a controlled charge as in V
Taper above. The current diminishes as the cell voltage (back
EMF) builds up. There is a serious danger of damaging the

cells through overcharging. To avoid this the charging rate and

duration should be limited. Suitable for SLA batteries only.
o Pulsed charge Pulsed chargers feed the charge current to
the battery in pulses. The charging rate (based on the average
current) can be precisely controlled by varying the width of
the pulses, typically about one second. During the charging
process, short rest periods of 20 to 30 milliseconds, between
pulses allow the chemical actions in the battery to stabilize by
equalizing the reaction throughout the bulk of the electrode
before recommencing the charge. This enables the chemical
reaction to keep pace with the rate of inputting the electrical
energy. It is also claimed that this method can reduce
unwanted chemical reactions at the electrode surface such as
gas formation, crystal growth and passivation.
-

Fully Charged Criteria\Charge Termination: why this is important?

Because it will protect your batter from overcharging. The most
common criterion is the terminal voltage.

For this project, we will use a simple constant current to charge our
battery. This can be obtained using simple current mirror. We will
investigate the ability of increasing the charging current by changing the
master load. Also the power consumption is to be calculated.

Coils Orientation:
This is very important in enhancing the power transfer efficiency. At this
point, the Maxell software is being used to examine different coils
orientations for optimizing the transfer range and the coupling coefficient.

for this project, after running multiple simulation we will choose the best
coil orientation to build our circuit. You will receive a separate report for
investigating the coil orientation by next week.
Once we choose the coil orientation, we will start simulating the AC part of
power transfer circuit and find the efficiency of power transfer.