Breaking News for EV Industry--The Megawatt Charging is Coming

CharIN Officially Launches The Megawatt Charging System (MCS)

The new connector can handle up to 3,000 A at up to 1,250 V to charge heavy-duty vehicles quickly.

By: Mark Kane

CharIN has officially launched at the EVS35 in Oslo, Norway, the Megawatt Charging System (MCS) DC Fast Charging connector for heavy-duty vehicles. As was can see, it has a new triangular shape. The MCS has been under development for about four years, since CharIN initiated the Task Force for Heavy Duty Charging for Commercial Vehicles, at the 1st CharIN North America Conference in 2018.Now, after completing development and tests (including at NREL), a working prototype of the MCS has been demonstrated on an Alpitronic charger and a Scania electric truck, which was able to receive more than 1 MW of power.

According to CharIN's website, the MCS is designed for a maximum current of 3,000 A (3 kA) at up to 1,250 V (1.25 kV), which means a potential 3,750 kW (3.75 MW) of peak power. That's an order of magnitude more than the 350-500 kW of the CCS Combo connector, which was used as a base for the MCS development.

The CharIN's website lists of requirements includes:

• Single conductive plug
• Max 1.250 volt & 3.000 ampere (DC)
• PLC + ISO/IEC 15118
• Touch Safe (UL2251)
• On-handle software-interpreted override switch
• Adheres to OSHA & ADA (& local equivalent) standards
• FCC Class A EMI (& local equivalent)
• Located on left side of the vehicle, roughly hip height
• Capable of being automated
• UL (NRTL) certified
• Cyber-Secure
• V2X (bi-directional)

It's expected that at some point after the launch, MCS will get an option of automatic connection. Charging from CCS chargers probably will be possible through a special adapter.

An interesting thing is the bi-directional capability, as in theory, a truck full of batteries could become a small power plant.