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Car companies, starting with Volvo last summer, have laid out plans to electrify entire lineups of vehicles. But the fine print makes it clear that the coming decade and beyond will focus not just on massive battery packs powering electric motors, but also on adding a little extra juice to the venerable internal combustion engine.
Increasingly, that juice will arrive in the form of new electrical systems built to a 48-volt standard, instead of the 12-volt systems that have dominated since the 1950s. Simpler than Prius-type drivetrains and less expensive than Tesla-scale battery power, the new electrical architecture both satisfies the demands of cars made more power hungry by their gadget load and enables the use of lower-cost hybrid drive systems.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/business/electric-cars-48-volts.html
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday February 26 2018, @04:47AM
Some times I despair, when things like using Microserf Woerd is called "Computer Science, but the so-called STEM techies are ignorant of the most basic facts of physics. Batteries, hm, alternator!! Running car, with power! So you will get fried! Please, spare us.
Interesting story, however. I knew one of the first owners of an automobile in the Territories. He would drive around from town to town, turn off his horseless carriage, and hand the coil wire to a local to hold while he turned over the engine with a crank. 10 Thousand Volts! Now that is a capacitor. No one died.
Also, little know fact, when there were only two automobiles in the entire Territory, they managed to run into each other.