Two Swiss companies - Cavotec and Brugg eConnect - unveiled at the Bauma trade fair in Munich, Germany their Megawatt Charging System (MCS) connector.
The MCS was officially launched by CharIN at the EVS35 in Oslo, Norway in June, and was recently introduced also in North America, although the industry still has to wait until 2023 for the first pilot stations and until 2024 for the first commercial fast charging stations.
The MCS has been designed to carry up to 3,000 A at up to 1,250 V, which translates into a theoretical power output of 3.75 MW (3,750 kW). That's a very high power level, which is needed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, like trucks, buses, agricultural, construction and mining vehicles, as well as potentially ships and aircraft.
According to the two partners, the presented MCS connector is the first system that achieved a sustainable current of 3,000 A for 3 MW power level (at 1,000 V).
Jörn Bullert, Cavotec Vice President Product Management, Charging Solutions said:
“MCS enables the safe and quick connection of heavy-duty vehicles and ships to electrical power in a reliable, ergonomic unit. As the most powerful system on the market, MCS significantly reduces typical charging times, thereby minimising downtime,”.
The first thing that caught our attention is the size of the plug, which makes the CHAdeMO plug look kind of small and surely impressed visitors. There is even a special handle because due to size and weight, plugging it in might require two hands.
We guess that lower-power units (for 350 kW or 1 MW) will be smaller than the 3 MW version) - at least the demonstration prototypes were.
The plug has a triangular connection to the charging inlet. We can see massive DC lines, with some additional communication pins and an active cooling system for the cable and the connector (plug side). Cavotec and Brugg eConnect is using a water-glycol solution as the cooling fluid.
The inlet side has a passive cooling system, and as we understand - the vehicle manufacturer must prepare its own passive or active cooling for the on-board cable between the charging inlet and the battery pack (which probably in almost all cases of heavy-duty vehicles has its own liquid cooling system).
According to Brugg eConnect, functional prototypes will be available for order from January, so the charger manufacturers will be able to perform their internal tests ahead of launching MCS DC fast chargers.
Here are additional images posted by Brugg eConnect:
We are very curious about the Tesla Semi Megawatt charging connector because potentially it will be compatible with the CharIN's MCS, but with a different design.
The Tesla Semi is just around the corner, while the first stations are already installed in a few locations.
