Charging Your Electric Car in just 5-Minutes is Becoming a Reality

Electric cars and other EVs are steadily gaining ground in many countries. To make the crucial changeover from gasoline and diesel cars and trucks happen faster, some countries like the UK, Germany, and Israel are banning new vehicle sales beginning in 2030

While many people are interested in going electric, there are concerns about range and how long it takes to recharge the batteries even with quick charging stations becoming more prevalent in many countries. Now, the Israeli lithium-ion battery startup StoreDot has demonstrated, in January 2021, its first 5-minute charge battery that could transform the industry.

The Herzliya based company, founded in 2012, has a mission to eliminate the range and charging time angst about EVs, just demonstrated that a full charge could be achieved in just 5-minutes, according to a press release from the company. StoreDot has previously demonstrated fast charging of cell phone batteries, drones, and scooters.

The new technology utilizes nano-scale metalloids and compounds to replace graphite in the battery cells which besides being faster, is also much safer. The sample cells were produced by StoreDot’s partner EVE Energy Co., Ltd, a Chinese company, and are compliant with UN 38.3 shipping requirements. The company expects the new batteries to be commercially available in 2025.

“The number one barrier to the adoption of electric vehicles is no longer cost, it is range anxiety,” Doron Myersdorf, CEO of StoreDot told The Guardian. “You’re either afraid that you’re going to get stuck on the highway or you’re going to need to sit in a fueling charging station for two hours. But if the experience of the driver is exactly like fueling, this whole anxiety goes away.”

“A five-minute charging lithium-ion battery was considered to be impossible,” he said. “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.”

To fully charge these new batteries will require much higher-powered chargers than the ones in use today according to The Guardian. Using current chargers, the batteries will be able to be fast charged to go 100 miles (160.93 kilometers). StoreDot is working with BP to develop the needed fast charge stations.

StoreDot is not alone in developing fast charge batteries. Tesla, Enevate and Sila Nanotechnologies are all working on silicone-based electrodes and other companies are working with different compounds.

“I think such fast-charging batteries will be available to the mass market in three years,” said Professor Chao-Yang Wang, at the Battery and Energy Storage Technology Center at Pennsylvania State University. “They will not be more expensive; in fact, they allow automakers to downsize the onboard battery while still eliminating range anxiety, thereby dramatically cutting down the vehicle battery cost.”

And research is being done to eliminate charging stations completely. A new prototype that allows EVs to  charge themselves as you drive via wireless transmission was recently developed by the University of Stanford. While this is years away, wireless charging may also be a game-changer in the switch to all electric.

No matter which method or methods work, increasing range and decreasing charging time is the key to making the switch from fossil-fuel guzzling vehicles to clean, zero-emission ones. This is one of the major components necessary to curb climate change and save the planet.