Despite being aware of the fact that electric cars are the future, many traditional vehicle drivers are still holding back actually to invest in one.
One of the biggest reasons is the lengthy charging time ranging from 45 min to even up to 2 hours, depending upon the manufacturer.
However, researchers claim to have come up with a new battery design that can juice up electric vehicles for at least 200 miles within 10 minutes.
To achieve this, Penn State University researchers try to mitigate the heating issue that arrives in lithium-ion batteries during fast charging.
In the current scenario, when provided with high currents, lithium forms plate-like deposits on the negative electrode over time, which shortens the battery life.
But the researchers found that if the batteries are charged at high-temperature just long enough to fill it up, and quickly store it in lower temperature; it will avoid the effect of “battery plaque”
For that purpose, the team added a thin nickel foil to the battery to create an internal self-heating structure. Through the procedure of heating and quickly cooling, researchers managed to charge 80% of the battery within 10 minutes.
Surrounding high temperatures can also affect the ammout of time taken to recharge the battery. According to Xiao-Guang Yang, an assistant research professor at Penn State, “No matter the vehicle is in the summer of Arizona or winter of Wisconsin, the battery is always charged at 60 degrees C,”
According to the researchers, it would take some good 2-3 years of in-vehicle testing before they can commercialize the fast charging tech for electric cars. The timeline aligns with the Echion Technologies project that is aiming to bring the charging time down to six minutes.
Range Anxiety, which is the fear of being stranded once the electric car runs out of charge, has also been a primary reason why drivers are going for conventional vehicles. Hopefully, the tech will help in curbing the range anxiety, given its just 10 minutes for 200 miles.
