A new lithium-ion batteries which has been developed by the Israeli company StoreDot and manufactured by Eve Energy in China on standard production lines can be fully charged in just five minutes.
This is a significant step towards electric cars becoming as fast to charge as filling up petrol or diesel vehicles.
They have already demonstrated its “extreme fast-charging” battery in phones, drones and scooters and the 1,000 batteries it has now produced are to showcase its technology to carmakers and other companies.
Daimler, BP, Samsung and TDK have all invested in StoreDot, which has raised $130m to date and was named a Bloomberg New Energy Finance Pioneer in 2020.
The batteries can be fully charged in five minutes but this would require much higher-powered chargers than used today. Using available charging infrastructure, StoreDot is aiming to deliver 100 miles of charge to a car battery in five minutes in 2025.
Existing Li-ion batteries use graphite as one electrode, into which the lithium ions are pushed to store charge. But when these are rapidly charged, the ions get congested and can turn into metal and short circuit the battery.
The StoreDot battery replaces graphite with semiconductor nanoparticles into which ions can pass more quickly and easily. These nanoparticles are currently based on germanium, which is water soluble and easier to handle in manufacturing.
But StoreDot’s plan is to use silicon, which is much cheaper, and it expects these prototypes later this year. These batteries are going to cost the same as existing Li-ion batteries.
Reference- StoreDot website &PR, the Times Of Israel, Bloomberg Quint, Futurism