The likelihood of a future e-mobility breakthrough depends heavily on how long it takes to charge vehicles and how user-friendly the charging infrastructure is. Until now, long charging times and bulky, heavy connectors have deterred car owners from going electric as much as high acquisition costs and limited ranges. For this reason, fast-charging DC technology (designed to charge vehicles sufficiently within minutes) is just as desirable as automatic charging solutions, as larger charging infrastructures are harder to handle and there is rarely enough space for charging in parking garages or fleet parking lots. As a leading pioneer in this field, HARTING is attending HANNOVER MESSE 2019 with its development partners RINSPEED and KUKA to showcase its visionary automatic charging solution for the e-mobility charging infrastructure.

The consortium has its sights set primarily on e-vehicles used in regional transportation and logistics. If companies are to keep up with the ever-increasing demands placed on delivery times and fleet availability, fast DC charging is surely a must. For instance, Frank M. Rinderknecht from RINSPEED envisions a future in which small, autonomous vehicles deliver goods to customers just in time and without detours - ideally, charging e-vans while they’re being loaded with packages and other materials. The automatic solution HARTING and its partners are bringing to Hannover is their e-charging assistant robot that plugs the DC combo 2 connector into the vehicle’s charging socket and removes it again, along with the cable, once the vehicle is fully charged. This fully automatic process has the vehicle ready to hit the road again in next to no time. What’s more, HARTING has optimized the powerful DC supply to suit the e-charging assistant’s specifications, supplying it with all the data, signals and power it requires.