Super-fast charging speed
From flat battery to full charge in just five minutes — an Israeli start-up has developed technology it says could eliminate the “range anxiety” associated with electric cars.
The 5-minute rule
Ultra-fast recharge specialists StoreDot have developed a first-generation lithium-ion battery that can rival the filling time of a standard car at the pump and can charge the batteries witthin 5 minutes .
“We are changing the entire experience of the driver, the problem of ‘range anxiety’… that you might get stuck on the highway without energy,” StoreDot founder Doron Myersdorf said.
Inception of idea
StoreDot founder Doron Myersdorf, who set up the company in 2012, has tested the battery on phones, drones and scooters, before tackling the big prize of electric vehicles. The innovation could eliminate the hours required to recharge an electric car, he said. Hundreds of prototypes are being tested by manufacturers.
Big investors
His company, based in Herzliya, near Tel Aviv, is backed by four key investors: German automobile manufacturer Daimler, the UK’s British Petroleum and the electronic giants Samsung and TDK.
Lithium-ion battery, good to go
Myersdorf said charging “speed was not part” of the original design that won the Nobel, so he worked on what was “considered impossible”: a lithium-ion battery good to go in minutes.
“We wanted to demonstrate that you can take a lithium-ion battery, replace some of its materials and then charge it in five minutes,” he said.
The engineer switched the original graphite in the battery’s negative anode with silicon. Batteries are assembled in a laboratory equipped with large glass boxes, sealed to keep oxygen out.
Challenges lying ahead
As public opinion shifts towards prioritising the climate change crisis, manufacturers are gearing production towards less polluting vehicles.
But the road is long. On the ground, charging stations would have to be adapted for the new generation batteries, costing between $1,500 and $10,000 depending on capacity. Electric cars are also still expensive, and in 2019 they represented only 2.6 percent of global sales, according to the International Energy Agency.
EV versus economy
For Myersdorf, the sooner the world switches to electric vehicles the better, pointing to the “huge impact on the planet”. But recycling lithium-ion batteries remains a problem, with Esperance noting that each has a lifespan of between 3,000 and 3,500 charges. Both the extraction and recycling of lithium pose ecological, political and economic challenges for technology to overcome.
Source: reuters
