Reply #5: Fast charging is a huge power demand problem...

[tinrobot]

If you want a car that goes more than 50 miles on a charge and want to charge quickly, you're going to have to go to higher voltages and currents. No way around it.

Getting that much power quickly could easily demand more power than all the houses on your street require for those few minutes. I can see home recharging stations with their own batteries/capacitors to store power between charges. Dribble it in through a garden hose, push it back out through a fire hose. That way the actual vehicle charging process can go fast, but you don't have to dim the whole neighborhood to do it.

Of course, batteries in the recharging station cost more money... and so it goes.