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DJI has quietly introduced a powerful new car charger for its giant portable batteries. The $299 / €269 Super fast 1kW car charger can charge the expansion of the company’s electrical stations up to 1000W from your car’s alternator when the engine is running.
This new class of (almost) do-it-yourself alternator chargers had a moment when the most popular manufacturers of solar generators and power stations embraced DC-to-DC chargers. I I wouldn’t have survived without one when I was working remotely from my van last summer.
Once the Power 1kW is mounted in your vehicle and connected to the car battery via the included 5m (16ft 5in) fused cable, it connects to the dongle-happy SDC port. DJI Power 1000 Power Station I recently reviewed. It also charges DJI’s 2048Wh Power 2000 expansion batteries when daisy-chained with SDC cables for up to 11 kWh of stackable storage capacity. The Power 1kW can also be configured to reverse-charge your car’s battery to prevent battery discharge.
At full power, the DJI Power 1kW Super Fast Car Charger can charge the Power 1000’s 1024Wh battery in just over an hour of driving. However, out of the box, the Power 1kW is pegged at 500W of load output. To get to 1000W, you have to buy another dongle – the $25 DJI Power Dongle – and then adjust the setting to 1000W in the app. Fortunately, DJI is bundling this dongle as a “free gift” with new purchases of the DJI Power 1kW Super Fast Car Charger, at least in the US.
DJI’s announcement follows the arrival of the EcoFlow 800W alternator charger I reviewed last summer and the new one 560W Bluetti AC500 announced in the fall (the magazine has arrived). The EcoFlow charger, like DJI, uses a proprietary connector that makes it more suitable for charging its giant batteries, while the Bluetti AC500 can charge solar generators and power stations from almost any manufacturer, but at half the rate of the DJI. Of course, all of this assumes that your vehicle is equipped with a high-capacity alternator that can save amps.
