Our last presentation this morning deals about plugs. Wolfgang Neumann is Director Technology Development at KOSTAL.

One of the challenges for a plug supplier like KOSTAL is the increase of the charging power for fast charging electric cars. While the current generation of DC chargers work with 50kW and 165A, the next generation is expected to deal with up to 350kW.
Mr. Neumann shows studies, how cable thickness, the material and the increase of power affects the loss.
„Our research shows, that cables with 95mm can handle only up to 400A. Higher values need either bigger cables or active cooling.“

Matthias Baumgartner

Mr. Becker explains some of the benefits, that ELDAGs approach answers in regard to these challenges (see post underneath):
„The huge differences between the average and peak consumption need to be observed and controlled by a central power management. A predictive approach can help to handle the peaks and avoid the overlap of multiple peaks.“
In order to achieve this, a real-time communication network with high speed ethernet is necessary.

The first car on the road to have this new architecture is expected to be available in 2025, according to Mr. Becker.

Matthias Baumgartner