Batteries were developed by the Israeli company StoreDot.
Current charging station capabilities are the weak link for the moment.
StoreDot’s plan, in the meantime, is to deliver 100 miles (160km) of range in 5 minutes.
This is the holy grail, the exact measure by which battery electric vehicles will become fully accepted by the car-buying masses. The moment car companies will announce that their EVs can be fully charged in about the same amount of time as a fuel tank can be filled, consumers will leave ICEs behind. It appears as though these batteries already exist.
StoreDot, an Israeli company, has developed lithium-ion batteries that are capable of handling extremely fast charging. The Guardian reports what Doron Myersdorf, CEO of StoreDot, said about the product: “A five-minute charging lithium-ion battery was considered to be impossible. But we are not releasing a lab prototype, we are releasing engineering samples from a mass production line. This demonstrates it is feasible and it’s commercially ready.”
2020 Porsche Taycan 4S | Photo: Olivier Delorme
The trick to these batteries is that they use semiconductor nanoparticles instead of graphite. This technology will continue to evolve in the very near future. Myersdorf added: “The bottleneck to extra-fast charging is no longer the battery.” At this point, the charging stations and grids that supply them need upgrading.
These batteries will likely be offered in niche and high-performance vehicles at first. Eventually, they will trickle down into mainstream EVs.
