We were excited to learn from Tech Bang, 16th January, that major automotive manufacturers are working to overcome two of the main barriers to electric car usage – range and recharging time - and looking to introduce a prototype this year that can go from flat to fully charged in 10 mins and cover 500 miles.
That’s 2/3 of the best recharge time and twice the current range of vehicles on the roads at the moment.
This is down to the Holy Grail of technology the super EV solid-state battery which as well as outputting more power, has the additional benefits of taking up less space than lithium-ion variants, is safer and has greater longevity.
This brings EVs more in line with ICE cars since 10 minutes is equivalent to a visit to the petrol pump. That leaves another key barrier in the minds of consumers which will be harder to solve, the ability to recharge your vehicle outside your home.
The future is the extreme fast-charging battery
Meanwhile in China the ‘extreme fast-charging battery’ (The Guardian,19 January) has just been produced which takes just five minutes and delivers 100 miles of charge! The specialised lithium-ion battery was developed from mobile phone charging technology and can answer drivers’ concerns about running out of charge while on a journey. Not yet in cars, it will be reliant on super-powered charging points.
Naturally, our interest in the rapid advancements in battery technology comes down to the thermal management challenges involved. Faster charging always generates more heat to be dissipated from the battery and within the charging points themselves. Solid-state batteries produce less extreme heat and make cooling simpler, but there is still a job to be done; all of which SPAL’s high-performance cooling fans are more than capable of handling.
Meanwhile we await with interest for these new developments to prove themselves in a real-world setting.
Image credit:
Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash
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