While charging an EV doesn't take a whole night these days -- Tesla's Supercharger only needs around two hours to fully charge one of the brand's cars -- a rapid-charging battery could convince new customers to make the switch. You don't have to be worried about running out of power while in the middle of time-sensitive tasks anymore. Not when you can be in and out of a charging station in the blink of an eye.
StoreDot's FlashBattery technology uses layers of nanomaterials and proprietary organic compounds, which it says have never been used on batteries before. The company also claims FlashBattery is safer than lithium-ion, since it's not flammable and has a higher combustion temp. We might be able to see the first EVs using the technology within three years -- we'll just have to wait and see whether it can help the industry grow.
StoreDot CEO Dr. Doron Myersdorf said in a statement:
hasuris on May 13rd, 2017 at 12:37 UTC »
I bet there is a reason there is no mentioning anywhere on how often this battery can do this. As long as this thing doesn't last considerably longer (= can take more charging cycles) than traditional Li-Ion batteries, I am not impressed.
MCvarial on May 13rd, 2017 at 10:17 UTC »
Charging a 100kWh battery of a Model S in 5 minutes would require a 1200kW power supply. As a comparison an average house has a 10kW connection. A 1.2MW user is even rare when it comes to industrial use and they typically run on 6600V. Its the power rating for an average transformer that powers a city block just for charging a car. Its a wind turbine running at almost full power. So the challenge here is adapting our grid to make this work rather than the charger itself, its quite an insane amount of power.
jnbzz on May 13rd, 2017 at 07:59 UTC »
The idea of charging as fast as you can have a cup of coffee at the gas stations sounds amazing.