500 KW peak rates and a more reliable design for a future DCFC infrastructure build out. Wayne Gerdes – CleanMPG – Mar. 4, 2024 Google backed Gravity DCFC is Live NY City, NY – Gravity, backed by Google Ventures, opened its first Midtown Manhattan 500 kW DCFCing center to the public, bringing the fastest charging in the US to the heart of the Big Apple. Gravity's DCFC is located at the indoor parking garage at 401 West 42nd Street. The charging systems were ceiling-mounted within the footprint of the existing parking spaces and no utility upgrades were made to the building and surrounding grid making this installation easily replicable at parking sites nationwide. The DCFC unit itself is not only capable of outputting an eye-opening 500kW, but the power is coming from within an 18” tall x ~ 30” wide x 8” deep dispenser that can be mounted essentially within any parking space. In November, UL Solutions certified Gravity’s 500 kW DCFCers and power cabinets making Gravity’s EV charging system the first of its kind to attain the UL 2202 certification. The upstream power is sourced from the company’s 480V Power cabinets consisting of stacks of 30kW power modules – up to 20 MW, that can be routed to a set of dispensers as far as 500 ft away. Gravity 500 kW DCFC at work Notice how the CCS handle is not allowed to fall to the ground? About time! The NY City DCFCing environment in detail: Gravity Charging is available 7 days a week with on-site attendants Up to 90-times faster than comparably-sized "Level 2" chargers deployed in most garages Faster charging than any car currently on the US market can accept 24 charging stalls, with more expected soon User-friendly plug-in and charge with auto authentication for all vehicle types Tap-and-go payment for on-demand charging with no appointment necessary Bidirectional-ready Gravity is not going to build out their hardware into a nationwide network on their own but as a Distributed Energy Access Point (DEAPs) hardware supplier, appears to be offering a turn-key solution for DCFC infrastructure as indicated below. The Manhattan Plaza location is Gravity's first full public deployment of equipment with additional sites in development. Gravity now has the capacity to manufacture and deploy thousands of chargers per year to sites that it operates. A weird twist is that as a Google Ventures backed entity, the Gravity DCFCing app is only available within the Apple iOS universe???
Whoa! 500kW at 480Volts. That is so scary. I remember the 50+(?) year old 440volt powered cranes down on the docks that could lift 40 tons of logs with 4 inch electrical cables running the dock length, winding up on huge wheels. Every time the switches connected & activated, you could hear the click echos & electrical surges from two hundred yards down the dock area. Huge amounts of power for sure! Never trusted them & I tried to stay as far from the cables as I could. I just can't believe they allow citizens anywhere near such power hungry electrical equipment. I feel the same about the 800Volt architecture of KIA & Hyundai chargers. 500 kW of power is the same as 500 1000watt electrical heaters simultaneously turning on in a series configuration. It is so spooky.
Hi All: I was watching some vids on this one. While they, the Gravity DCFCing system, has a nameplate rating of 500A and 1,000V for a 500 KW rating on a Chinese branded box, it is doubtful a single charger could reach that level as the cable rating is maxxed out at 500A let alone nothing uses that amount of power to date. Adding, the entire system if all the chargers were plugged in, the load split would come to less than 100 KW load to a charger. This one sounds sketchy to me. Wayne