ABB E-Mobility´s New A400 All-in-One Charger: From Chargers to Managed Assets
May 16, 2024
In today’s EV charging industry, lack of reliability, complex charging experiences for drivers and insufficient return on investment (ROI) are three key challenges for owner/operators and fleets that hinder large-scale deployment of charging infrastructure. The new A400 All-in-One charger offers the highest power density with the smallest footprint and addresses these challenges head-on by introducing innovations in these three problem areas: a holistic, end-user centric experience design, industrialized modularity and system engineering, and a telecom-level approach to asset management.
Today, charging success rates are mediocre at best, often below 70%. When approaching a charger, drivers of private or commercial vehicles are often confused about how to use the chargers, face payment issues that block the charging process, and too often think their vehicle is charging when it is not.
The A400 has been developed with a consumer-centric design approach focused on achieving the highest charging success rates possible. The A400 enhances the overall charging process by creating clarity and reducing friction points between car, charger, and payment systems to ensure a seamless experience from arrival to completion. With its intuitive user interface displayed on a large 32-inch screen, the A400 is as easy and familiar to use as your smartphone. It guides the user step by step and confirms the charging status and completion of the charging process with the ambition of a 99% charging success rate.
The A400 is more than just a hardware product. With its new cloud-based asset management toolchain, it will be possible to manage charging assets at the highest level – like telecommunication networks, where reliability, scalability, interoperability, security, and performance play an important role. This means that the A400 comes with 24/7 asset management service-level agreements (SLAs) that target 99% charging success rates, as well as 97% uptime and fast service response times.
For many fleets and owner/operators, the focus in recent years has been mainly on installing power – peak power and volume of power. The question has been “how much installed power do I get for my money?” The result has been a pursuit of quantity over quality. ABB E-Mobility believes that as an industry, we need to continue to deploy more power and increase grid densities as the installed base of EV fleets continues to grow.
At the same time, we need to find a better balance between just installing more power on the one hand and more reliability and more power sharing on the other. That’s why ABB E-mobility designed the A400 with the aim of achieving a 10-year product lifetime, high reliability and, most importantly, enabling our customers to sell energy at the lowest cost. This will significantly improve the customer’s bottom line.
In addition, the dynamic power sharing with a granularity of 50 kW helps to take different charging patterns into account, while in-house built silicon carbide-based power modules, maximum efficient air cooling, and a highly industrialized system design deliver the required reliability.
ABB E-mobility is the first to implement two-phase cooling technology (liquid to vapor to liquid) into a charging connector capable of up to 600 amperes of peak current. This patented technology is more reliable and efficient, with lower maintenance cost than traditional liquid cooled cable solutions.
“Charging networks constitute a mission-critical transport infrastructure on the way to an energy-efficient and climate-neutral mobility era. The A400 has been designed from the ground up as a system for the reliable and cost-effective delivery of energy, enabling our customers to operate their network at the highest level, and achieving their desired economic outcome,” said Michael Halbherr, CEO of ABB E-mobility. “At ABB E-Mobility, we have taken key lessons from our extensive experience and are obsessed with creating a charging experience that is reliable, scalable, managed and secure, while ensuring interoperability and performance.”
What the A400 Delivers:
- Two charging ports provide 200kW of continuous charging power to two vehicles, up to 400kW for a single vehicle, compliant with all applicable governmental requirements and funding parameters in the U.S. and Europe.
- Silicon carbide power modules developed and produced in-house, arranged in modular 100 kW blocks, allow two vehicles to be charged simultaneously in 50 kW increments to ensure that only the required power is drawn, and less unsold capacity remains.
- The first to implement two-phase cooling technology (liquid to vapor to liquid) into a charging connector capable of up to 600 amperes of peak current. This patented technology is more reliable and efficient, with lower maintenance cost than traditional liquid cooled cable solutions.
- Payment flow integrated into the charger’s user interface enables hassle-free payment transactions and eliminates one of the main causes for low charging success rates: a lack of interoperability with third-party payment systems.
- Lean design techniques and modularization lead to fewer parts, enable extensive subsystem testing, facilitate the maintenance and repair of the system, while improving serviceability and durability.
- A compact footprint with maximally optimized airflow ensures higher power charging sessions and long-term reliability.
- Performance-based SLAs based on a new asset management toolchain in conjunction with a streamlined service process will lead to high charging success rates and availability as well as faster service response times.
