Charging Car Batteries Will Take Only 5 Minutes

Israeli company StoreDot has overcome one of the major barriers to electromobility - the problem of long charging cycle for a vehicle. The company boasted that it has developed a test batch of batteries for cars, which can be fully charged in just five minutes. This has opened up the possibility of removing one of the main barriers slowing down the expansion of electric cars - the need to make long stops during journeys (via The Guardian).

The first engineering batch of XFC fast-charging lithium-ion batteries was created at StoreDot's factory in China. Creators of the technology replaced the graphite in the cell's anode with solid-state nanoparticles (ultimately to be made of silicon, though current models use a more expensive material called germanium). Due to lower specific resistance, less heat is released during charge/discharge cycle alternations. This enables the charger to use a much higher current and significantly shorten the entire process.

In 2019, the company showed a scooter powered by a prototype battery pack. In the video, we can see how a 0.75 kWh battery is removed from the vehicle and charged in a special charger in about five minutes.

It is easy to see that both the battery and the charger have a special design to facilitate cooling. Despite the sizable current (130 A), the temperature of the battery rose only a few degrees. However, charging a much larger car in this way can prove problematic - it requires the use of chargers with much higher power than those used today and the provision of adequate safety measures.

Under current conditions (no changes in the infrastructure of docking stations) StoreDot sets a slightly less ambitious goal - by 2025 it should be possible to charge a car in five minutes to a level enabling us to drive a hundred miles (about 160 kilometers). Importantly, the new batteries can be produced using existing lines in lithium-ion cell factories.

1. StoreDot - official homepage