Peak power out of battery

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SparkevBlogspot

Well-known member
Joined
May 25, 2015
Messages
498
Chevy states SparkEV is capable of 103 kW (or is that 105 kW?). But what is the peak power out of the battery? I thought I saw the display jump to 110 kW, but is there any doc / info that shows definitely what the peak power from the battery is?
 
Wouldn't that just be a 'Rated Peak' and SW controlled?

A very low resistance big ass load or a big bad short across the terminals,, and who knows what you might see with a recording ammeter?!!
2000A? 3000A?,, for a few moments before the smoke arrives.

The actual cells are rated from the manufacture. And they probably only talk to the car manufacturer about that spec.

Some of the RC Li-Ion cells are rated up to 20-30C discharge rate. Those EV toy guys flog their battery packs !
But you don't get an 8yr / 100k mile warranty with those cells ....

edit: I know this is a silly extreme, but there really is no hard set answer. It's whatever the manufacturer says is acceptable for the cell, with its life expectancy as a primary factor.
 
Perhaps you have started a peak power challenge? This guy got his Spark to pull 120KW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM6esfT-2rU

that's 161 hp total power output (at the battery I presume)... then allowing for other minor power uses and the controller/motor efficiency it may be generating a tad more power than Chevrolet states?
 
Actually, I have seen 120 kW out of the battery when the battery is close to 70% and accelerating uphill from standing start. It seems the power tapers down once you get moving, so that's why I saw 110 kW before. Damn thing accelerates too quickly! :)

Warren who comments at Insideevs measured 2015 SparkEV in 0-60 at tad under 7 seconds at strip. Under some conditions, SparkEV probably puts out more power to the wheels than GM's claim. Unfortunately, Warren won't post or upload the videos.
 
I've only had my Spark for 6 days, and I still have temporary out of state plates on it so I haven't really opened it up yet, but somewhere in my garage I have a G-tech performance meter/gauge, I used to use years ago when I was tweaking my old ICE car, so I'll find a quiet flat stretch of highway sometime in the coming weeks and give it a test. I wonder how the variation in EV performance compares with that of ICE cars, and what conditions give EVs the best performance times (which will be very different to those for ICE cars). About 25 years ago I read an article where they back to back tested 20 new Chevy Camaros, if I remember correctly they found that 80% of Camaros performed approximately as advertised, 15% were significantly slower than claimed and 5% (1 car) performed significantly better than the published specifications. There was a consistent >0.6 s difference in the 0-60 times between the fastest and slowest cars.
 
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