FEVER tests EV charging infrastructure on trip to visit Siemens Smart Infrastructure, Manchester, and defines cost target!

Part of the FEVER team (Prof Andy Cruden and Mr Andy Westerman) drove a Kia Niro battery EV* from Southampton to Manchester (and back to Southampton!) on Wednesday 10th Jan 2024, to visit one of the FEVER partners, Siemens, to view and discuss the suitability of the new Siemens SiCharge-D high rate CCS type EV fast charging unit (see Figure 1).

*(Thank you to Dr Anil Madhusudhanan, Dept. of Mechanical Eng, Uni. of Southampton, for providing his research vehicle for the trip. This EV was purchased as part of Dr Madhusudhanan’s recent grant award from the Royal Society, Research Grant RGS\R1\231218)

Figure 1: Siemens SiCharge-D CCS (and CHAdeMO) fast charger, Princess Road, Manchester

The Kia Niro[1] battery EV comes with a 64.8kWh lithium-ion battery, claimed range of 285 miles[2] and CCS enabled charging ability. Initially, from the car’s base at the University of Southampton’s Boldrewood campus, the car was charged on Tues 9th Jan 2024 using the University’s 7 kW AC chargers (from PodPoint) to an initial battery State of Charge (SoC) of 100% showing a driving range of 232 miles, see Figure 2.

Figure 2: Car being charged at University’s Boldrewood Campus using PodPoint 7 kW charger

The following morning, Wed 10th Jan 2024, after a short 4 mile commuting trip and due to the cold weather (outside temperature was 0 degC) the driving range was now 218 miles.

Setting off was into the usual heavy M27/M3/A34 morning traffic, so initial progress was slow, but eventually we called into the Cherwell Valley Services, junction 10 of the M40, having covered some ~90 miles, with the battery showing 49% SoC. Taking advantage of this stop to have an opportunity charge, we plugged into the available CCS enabled Gridserve Medium Power Chargers and topped up the battery adding 25% SoC, some 19.3 kWh in 35 mins, see Figure 3. This was easily facilitated by contactless card payment, however was costed at 79 p/kWh!!

Figure 3: Gridserve charging at Cherwell Valley Services (19.3 kWh delivered @~32 kW, in 35 mins)

The next leg to Siemens at Princess Road, Manchester, of some 140 miles, was relatively painless driving. However it did test the ‘range anxiety’ concerns, as we arrived at Siemens after several warning messages about ‘Low EV Battery’ and looming empty battery, Figure 4!

Figure 4: ‘Range Anxiety’ warnings from the Kia Niro upon arrival at Siemens!

In this instance, although with only 19 miles of driving range left, real range anxiety was not experienced as we knew there was an available charging point at Siemens! Plugging in the CCS charger from the SiCharge-D charger, we immediately had a 70 kW maximum charge rate available and managed to supply almost 59 kWh of charge in 86 mins, with the charger still working at 17.5 kW even with the battery at 97% SoC, Figure 5.

Figure 5: Performance of SiCharge-D charger at Siemens, Manchester

With a full battery when leaving Siemens, Manchester, and after successful discussions regarding the FEVER project seeking a suitable CCS charger for ongoing research work, we set off to head home to Southampton. Traffic was poor travelling around Birmingham, and then at a standstill for some time on the A34 around Oxford, such that a final charging stop was needed at the Chieveley Services on the A34/M4 intersection.

Again, a Gridserve Medium Power charging point was used, see Figure 6, starting at 17% SoC and adding 50% SoC in 43 mins at 43 kW charging rate. However we only discovered these 2 charging points after being dismayed by approaching the new Gridserve charging point hub to discovering they are NOT operational at this time (note the Harris fencing preventing use!), see Figure 7.

Figure 6: Charging at Chieveley Services, A34/M4 junction

 

Figure 7: New Gridserve charging points at Chieveley Services are not available for use!

To conclude, the Kia Niro made the journey quite comfortably, but required 3 separate charging stops totalling 2 hrs 44 mins, delivering some 113.09 kWh of battery charge at a cost of £89.34, for a total journey of some 460 miles (assuming all charging @ 79 p/kWh. N.B. the charging at Siemens was NOT costed to FEVER, thankyou to Siemens!).

So the target for FEVER is quite clear…can we deliver an off-grid EV charging station where high rate CCS charging convenience is readily capable, at a charge cost (hopefully significantly!) below the current motorway service cost of 79 p/kWh?

[1] https://www.kia.com/uk/new-cars/niro/

[2] WLTP, combined range test figure