A local auto dealership is among the first in the country to install a storage battery to reduce costs and improve efficiency as it sells and services electric vehicles.
The 140 kilowatt-hour battery at Suburban Chrysler in the Troy Motor Mall allows fast charging with little or no upgrade to the dealership’s electric service or connection to the electric grid, said Mark LaNeve, president of Charge Enterprises, which works with hardware suppliers to install charging stations. The battery allows for buffered charging by storing energy so the dealership doesn’t have to draw the full amount of power required from the grid.
“Buffered solutions will be necessary if businesses have multiple DC fast chargers” LaNeve said. DC fast chargers draw large amounts of electricity in order to charge an EV in 20-40 minutes. They can require large and expensive underground cables connecting to the grid.
Saving by avoiding peak hours
The battery effectively shifts some of the power draw to times when no EV is being charged, storing that electricity to supplement power taken from the grid when one or more EVs require it.
Called a ChargeBox, the battery is about the size of an air-conditioning compressor, 4 feet on a side, said Bill Bieser, automotive vice president for GenZ EV Solutions, which distributes the battery in North America. Porsche and supplier ADS-Tec developed the dealership battery as the automaker began selling EVs. About 500 are in use at Porsche dealerships around the world.
Porsche had exclusive rights to the ChargeBox until recently. Suburban Chrysler is the first non-Porsche dealer in the U.S. to get one.
The battery alone does not charge the EVs. It adds to on-demand electricity from the grid.
“The ChargeBox reduces peak variance in electric load for utilities, reduces the dealership’s need to upgrade their power connection, reduces demand charges for electricity during peak hours, and reduces utilities’ need to invest in new generating capacity,” Bieser said. “It also allows storage of energy from solar and wind sources. It’s truly green.”
Cuts costs 30%-40%
The ChargeBox can reduce a dealership’s electric bills 30%-40% by reducing power use at peak hours, Bieser said.
The battery requires a connection to the power grid of at least 50 kW. An upcoming model will reduce that to 30 kW.
The ChargeBox is expected to last around 10 years. The ones already in use around the world have 97% uptime, Bieser said.
Contact Mark Phelan: 313-222-6731 or mmphelan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @mark_phelan. Read more on autos and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.