Battery Breakthrough: Researchers Claim 70% Charge In 2 Minutes, 20-Year Life

New submitter chaosdivine69 writes: According to Scientists at Nanyang Technology University (NTU), they have developed ultra-fast charging batteries that can be recharged up to 70 per cent in only two minutes and have a 20-year lifespan (10,000 charges). The impact of this is potentially a game changer for a lot of industries reliant on lithium ion batteries. In the car industry, for example, consumers would save on costs for battery replacement and manufacturers would save on material construction (the researchers are using a nanotube structure of Titanium dioxide, which is an abundant, cheap, and safe material found in soil). Titanium dioxide is commonly used as a food additive or in sunscreen lotions to absorb harmful ultraviolet rays. It is believed that charging an electric car can be done in as little as 5 minutes, making it comparable to filling up a tank of gasoline.

Comments

No mention on capacity though

[Obscene_CNN]

No mention on capacity though. If its capacity is low enough the these claims are easy to achieve.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[gaelfx]

...Prof Chen's new cross-linked titanium dioxide nanotube-based electrodes eliminate the need for these additives and can pack more energy into the same amount of space.

Seems like it should be, at the very least, on par with current capacities, if not greater. You are correct though, there does not seem to be a direct statement regarding capacity, making me very suspicious.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[olsmeister]

It's still a lithium ion battery, they've just changed the material being used for the anode.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[grantspassalan]

Even if it did have enough capacity, it would take a 2 MW power supply to charge a 100 kW battery in five minutes, assuming there were no losses. A “gas station” that could “fill” five electric cars simultaneously would have to have a 10 MW grid connection. I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you mean a 100kW/hr battery? There is no such thing as a 100kW battery. Idiot.

There is no such thing as 100kW/hr battery. There is a 100kWh battery.

If you are going to call people idiots, it's best not to be one.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[the_other_chewey]

Do you mean a 100kW/hr battery? There is no such thing as a 100kW battery. Idiot.

Neither is there a 100kW/hr battery. Moron.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[ShanghaiBill]

A “gas station” that could “fill” five electric cars simultaneously would have to have a 10 MW grid connection.

A 10MW or larger grid connection is not particularly uncommon. A factory, mall, or large building might need that much. Almost any power company would have some customers with those kind or requirements. If the "gas station" is on a busy street, there might already be nearby lines available.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[TheInternetGuy]

Do you mean a 100kW/hr battery? There is no such thing as a 100kW battery. Idiot.

Do you mean a 100kWh (or possibly kW*h) battery? There is no such thing as a 100kW/hr battery. And note that I won't call you an idiot, just because you are wrong.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[rtb61]

Logically you do not charge electric vehicles at a "commercial vehicle charging station" but at any regularly used parking point via induction charging. Obviously any commercial car park would build in induction charges and charge more slowly based upon estimated parking time and combine charging costs with parking costs. Employers would naturally subsidise the cost of the employee car parks by offering vehicle charging, over the life of a car park it makes sense. Even shopping malls could add in metered vehicle induction charging to charge vehicles during their stay. Pretty much the plain 'gas station' would die over time, replaced by diners with charging while you eat, mini marts with charging while you shop, basically any type of business that has to pay for car parks looking to subsidise that cost with induction charging fees.

This battery breakthrough by "TU professor Rachid Yazami, the co-inventor of the lithium-graphite anode", points to exactly why mega battery factories are so financially risky at this time, real battery breakthroughs are coming down the line, that will change everything. Tying into the right technology (now is the right time) and making sure your investment can compete for the next say 15 years is critical.

Not just used in cars of course but also to be used in residential properties to really drive renewable energy sources and people in the burbs being able to escape the grid (where battery life and capacity are everything and charging time is not so important). Most people of course will be charging at home most of the time and as long as fuelling points match dining times and battery capacity, fuelling on road would be pretty much as it already is on long trips.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[able1234au]

'gas stations' will still have a role for rapid charging but yes, most charging would be trickle charging. If you are travelling long distance, have a problem with your charging at home, are staying at a house without trickle charging etc etc, then there will always be exceptions. And gas stations will still sell petrol, diesel, natural gas etc. But i would expect there will be a lot less of them and they will need to change their business model.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[AaronW]

All it requires is on-site battery or capacitor storage. It makes even more sense since the batteries can be charged when electricity prices are cheap (i.e. at night).

Re:No mention on capacity though

[tibit]

The energy is stored in the moment of inertia, so it being heavy without regard to geometry is not enough. In realistic implementations, you need composite flywheels where something dense is used at the edge, and something stiff and strong is used elsewhere.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[icebike]

Moving all of the energy that a 85 kW-hr lithium-ion EV battery can hold into a battery in 2 or 5 minutes would require some truly dangerous amperage,
and some enormous amount of heat could be generated.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[angel'o'sphere]

They are far more common than YOU believe.
Every bakery, or office building (with something like 100 rooms) has such a connection.
Hint: learn to compare apples with oranges.
A car engine has roughly 100kW. (Usually around, 75kW).
Ten cars are 1MW ... 100 cars are 10MW.
A standard light bulb needs 75W, a computer roughly 400W.

10MW power is NOTHING.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[MildlyTangy]

Moving all of the energy that a 85 kW-hr lithium-ion EV battery can hold into a battery in 2 or 5 minutes would require some truly dangerous amperage,
and some enormous amount of heat could be generated.

Go parallel.

The 85kW battery pack in a Tesla for instance, has a huge bunch of standard lithium ion cells in parallel and in series. Have multiple charger conductors to each charge a section of the entire pack, which reduces the amperage per conductor, but keeps the power input to the whole pack at a maximum.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[icebike]

Do 4 or 6 plug-ins hanging from each car?
Don't see that happening any time soon.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[Anonymous Coward]

Moving all of the energy that a 85 kW-hr lithium-ion EV battery can hold into a battery in 2 or 5 minutes would require some truly dangerous amperage,
and some enormous amount of heat could be generated.

Whoa! That's assuming the resistance of current battery tech to be the same. Clearly it is not with this new titanium dioxide plus sodium hydroxide gel being used. If the resistance was the same then charging times would not be so low. All the team did was replace the anode material with the new stuff and WHAMO! charge time goes to single digit minutes. Nowhere in the article, summary or journal article (free, by the way) does it say that any charging ampere changes are made to get the shortened recharge time.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[Rei]

In a naive calculation, one can easily determine that the charging cable would be way too heavy and unwieldy for a person to use.

Of course, that's the problem with naive calculations. The solution in practice for very high power charging is very simple, just cool the cable rather than requiring it to be passively air-cooled.

Personally, I think very high-power chargers should also provide coolant for the vehicle, through the charging port. It makes a lot more sense to me to make a small number of chillers (aka, part of the chargers) which can keep a store of coolant than making every single vehicle have to haul around a high power chiller and coolant reservoir. Coolant comes from the charger's reservoir, along its switching electronics, down the cable, into the vehicle, into its pack, and then heated coolant is returned on the cable's return line

Re:No mention on capacity though

[Rei]

And of course, the assumption that if your station's maximum output is 10 MW that you have to have a 10 MW feed to the grid is also wrong. It presumes that you can't have a battery buffer in your station. Look at your typical gas station; pumps spend by far most of their time idle. A charging station with a peak output of 10 MW could probably meet all its needs with a 2 MW feed and a 20-minute battery buffer (although a statistical analysis of consumption patterns would be required for specifics)

Re:No mention on capacity though

[Rei]

This is not going to suddenly "change everything". First off, there's so little info here you can't even see through the hype. There's nothing to get an idea of how hard this would be to commercialize, what its energy density would be, or any of tons of other things that make a big difference. And secondly, these are hardly the first lab-scale batteries to have properties like this. Heck, there have even been lithium titanate batteries commercialized before. Crazy charge / discharge times, but they were largely a flop except in niche applications - the cost was way too high and the energy density too low.

There is every week or two some great research breakthrough in battery storage. Most of them you'll never read about. Most of them will never go anywhere. But a few will. And they will slowly, inevitably make their way into the battery technology of tomorrow. Silicon anodes, for example, were once among those crazy lab future battery techs. Now they're in commercial cells. People never stop to think about how little the batteries in their phones have gotten in an area of increasing computing power, larger screens, greater demands on lifespan, etc. Energy density continues its inevitable march.... in the background. But the odds that any one tech that you read about is going to carry the industry is very small. And these things take half a decade to go from the lab to stores.

Re: No mention on capacity though

[Camembert]

After driving 200 miles it is good practice to stop for a few minutes so this recharching should fit right in.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[m00j]

USA electricity pricing is 8 - 17 cents / kWh (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...). So let's say $0.2 per kWh
10MW = 10,000 kW. So if you were using the full 10MW connection that would cost $2000 per hour. I'm sure if you are using that much you get a special rate.

From a quick search I found this PDF: https://www.ergon.com.au/__dat...
For that particular 26500m^2 shopping centre their energy usage was 4000 kVA, which is 4MW. There are at least 9 shopping centres in Australia that are 5x larger than that in terms of m^2.

So yes, there definitely are connections of that magnitude delivering continuous power. And they are not all that uncommon.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[EETech1]

10 MW is only 400 Amps @ 14400 Volts.
Pretty typical for industry.

Anything over 2.5 MW and you are going to have to get more than 480 Volt service anyways, that's 3000 Amps. The cost of the wire you would need to run would easily pay for a transformer.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[beelsebob]

Sure it would –it just wouldn't last 20 years. With charging in a few minutes, I think he's perfectly capable of charging it while he's working. So that's 2 charges a day, or one every 12 hours. That means it'll last 13.7 years. To be honest, that's a pretty reasonable length of time for a car.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[David_Hart]

This is not going to suddenly "change everything". First off, there's so little info here you can't even see through the hype. There's nothing to get an idea of how hard this would be to commercialize, what its energy density would be, or any of tons of other things that make a big difference. And secondly, these are hardly the first lab-scale batteries to have properties like this. Heck, there have even been lithium titanate batteries commercialized before. Crazy charge / discharge times, but they were largely a flop except in niche applications - the cost was way too high and the energy density too low.

There is every week or two some great research breakthrough in battery storage. Most of them you'll never read about. Most of them will never go anywhere. But a few will. And they will slowly, inevitably make their way into the battery technology of tomorrow. Silicon anodes, for example, were once among those crazy lab future battery techs. Now they're in commercial cells. People never stop to think about how little the batteries in their phones have gotten in an area of increasing computing power, larger screens, greater demands on lifespan, etc. Energy density continues its inevitable march.... in the background. But the odds that any one tech that you read about is going to carry the industry is very small. And these things take half a decade to go from the lab to stores.

Battery tech slowly evolves and gradually gets better. There have been few leaps in battery tech over the last 20 or so years, despite other such announcements. Like you, I am also skeptical that this is a true breakthrough. However, it would be amazing if it can be scaled up.

The one thing that I disagree with in your comment is the premise that batteries in cell phones have gotten smaller due to battery tech. It is partially true. However, the majority of energy gains in cell phones have been the huge leaps in low power ever-shrinking electronics and battery saving technologies (components being able to go to sleep).

If battery tech had kept pace with electronics, we would be able to power our cell phones for weeks instead of just a couple of days.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[ChrisMaple]

When every penny counts, induction charging is a poor choice. Some of the field is always going to leak, and there are going to be losses in the coil windings and cores. A heavy pickup coil in the vehicle is also not optimum.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[fluffy99]

85 KW*hr in 5 minutes is about a megawatt of power. Even at 10,000 volts, you're talking 100 amps.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[Circlotron]

Do 4 or 6 plug-ins hanging from each car? Don't see that happening any time soon.

Like a cow on a milking machine.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[Nirvelli]

Well the Tesla Superchargers are "capable of charging up to 400 volts at 250 amps" so 100 amps is no problem.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[thegarbz]

The number doesn't matter. Surface area matters.

Re:No mention on capacity though

[michelcolman]

OK, some basic electricity:

Power = amps * voltage. Ergo, to load more energy in a shorter time, you either have to use more amps or more voltage.

The Tesla supercharger is already at 400V, I don't think they want to go any higher because otherwise they would. All you need to do is put more cells in series. 400V looks like the highest they're comfortable with.

This means there's only one variable left: more amps. And if, like you say, the resistance of the new batteries is lower, that is precisely what would allow them to use more amps. If resistance is cut in 4, they can use twice the amperage for the same heat generation (per second).

Re:No mention on capacity though

[paavo512]

This is 400*250 = 100 000W = 100 kW. To transfer 85 kWh one needs almost an hour.

Light on details, however...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, good, the article DOES mention power density indirectly, saying that this new lithium ion design can store more energy more compactly. However, what about heat generation during thie high-speed charging? Will that be a problem?

Re:Light on details, however...

[Ralph Wiggam]

Also on the logistics side, the amount of power required would be extraordinary even if there were no waste heat. The battery in my electric car is 24 kW-h. 70% of that is 16.8 kW-h. Wouldn't delivering that much power in 5 minutes require a 200,000 Watt hook up? Now imagine an electric "filling station" with 5 or 10 bays that could be used concurrently.

The outlet in my garage is 220V 30A (normally used for electric clothes dryers), and I think that's about as heavy duty as you can get in a normal American home. The battery charger is 6600W, to go along with that outlet.

So even if we had these amazing batteries today, there are still a lot of other problems involved in actually shooting that much energy into them that quickly.

Re:Light on details, however...

[EETech1]

1 - 2 MW is nothing for a commercial property though. The only reason your house is wired for 100 amps is you would rarely use over 30 - 40. If the demand is there to sell power, the power company will find a way to deliver it to you.

I design systems with multiple megawatt connections. The last place I was at had 50 MW of service installed to run 5 machines. It was nothing out of the ordinary.

Getting 250 Amps of 480 3 phase is nothing for a commercial property. That would handily cover your 200KW load.

Re:Light on details, however...

[whyAreAllNicksTaken]

Ah but heat waste will be a serious issue. Our electric cars today charge efficiently because the internal resistance of the battery is much higher than the resistance in the rest of the charging circuit (basically the copper wire between the electric meter and battery, from our point of view) Maximum Power transfer theorem tells us that we will achieve maximum power transfer when the resistance of the load (battery) is equal to the resistance of the rest of the circuit. However, when we reach that point, half the power will be used by the load (battery) and half will be converted to heat as a result of resistance in the rest of the circuit. So when we transfer maximum power, we do so at 50% efficiency. The lower the internal resistance of these batteries may mean we can charge them faster, but we will pay a price in efficiency to do so. I'd also be concerned about safety. Low internal resistance is what makes Lithium-Ion batteries so dangerous. It's why, when shorted, they essentially become electrically powered hand grenades. I could certainly see that being even worse with these, but we'd need details to make those determinations, and I can't click on the link prior to commenting per slashdot TOS.

Re:Light on details, however...

[RealTime]

Electric ranges (oven and cook-top) are 220V 50A .

Electric ranges are pretty common in U.S. homes, although, just some like clothes dryers and hot water heaters, some ranges use natural gas.

The most common receptacle for this in the U.S. is NEMA 14-50R .

Larger RVs also use this receptacle for "shore power".

Available in 5 years

[afaiktoit]

you can charge them with your 50% efficient solar panels

Licensed?

[ArcadeMan]

The technology is currently being licensed by a company for eventual production.

Is it Tesla?

Re:Charging amperage

[almitydave]

Well, it says they've developed "a battery" that can be charged that much that fast. It doesn't say what the capacity of this battery is. I'd guess it's a small research/proof-of-concept battery of cell-phone size or smaller. Later in the article, they talk about charging an electric car in <15 minutes. The Tesla superchargers provide 200kW, enough to charge the Tesla Model S with the 85kWh battery fully in 1 hour, and you can get home chargers that charge at 200V 100A. Surely 4 times the amperage wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility?

Just moves a choke point

[linuxwrangler]

One need only calculate the size of substation needed to deliver the equivalent energy of, say, a 16-pump Costco gas station to see that the fact that a battery can be charged that fast doesn't mean there is any infrastructure anywhere that could support it. The Tesla has an 85kWh battery. In other words, a 70% charge in 2-minutes requires pumping over 1.7 million watts to the car. Think a 2,000-volt supply shoving nearly 900-amps. Per "pump." But that kind of capacity would allow for better capture of regenerative braking energy.

It could be great for things like cordless drills. At ~40-60 Wh the supply would not require more than a standard 120V/15A outlet.

Re:Just moves a choke point

[timeOday]

Maybe the new 'gas pump' is a big capacitor?

Conducting that much electricity, that fast, does seem almost unfathomable though.

Re:Just moves a choke point

[svirre]

Generally fast chargers will not be in constant use. Hence it is acceptable to build a battery pack in the charging station, which can charge at a more reasonable speed off the grid and be capable of delivering high current at a presumably http://www.siemens.com/innovat...

Keep in mind most EV charging can be done overnight at household outlets, only a few very long journeys will need topping up during the day, so it is reasonable that the number of fast charging outlets will be much less than current gas pumps even when EVs reach near complete market penetration, thus the number of installations will be small enough that costs will not be onerous.

Re:Just moves a choke point

[svirre]

Mangled my own text. Sorry.

Generally fast chargers will not be in constant use. Hence it is acceptable to build a battery pack in the charging station, which can charge at a more reasonable speed off the grid and be capable of delivering high current at a presumably much much less than 100% duty cycle.

This was done here: http://www.siemens.com/innovat...

(Apparantly slashdot chokes on the much much less than sign)

Re:Just moves a choke point

[sconeu]

My math shows 714kW, which is a more reasonable, but not by much .7 * 85kWh/5min * 60min/hr = 714kW

Re:I call bullshit

[haruchai]

That's why I think battery swap stations will become necessary & popular as EVs become commonplace.
I'm glad Tesla built the capability into the Model S and hope they keep it for the Model 3.

Re:I call bullshit

[almitydave]

The article only claims it could "increase their range dramatically, with just five minutes of charging" which is not the same as fully charging. Later they talk about fully charging in 15 minutes or less, which is only 4x faster than the Tesla superchargers on the 85kWh Model S.

If so...

[kefalonia]

...the impact of this would be profound in energy distribution since it can potentially decouple real-time supply-demand constraints.

Haven't we heard this before?

[Dorianny]

If only I had a mod point for every Slashdot story claiming a battery breakthrough!

It's about time

[NEDHead]

It has been days since my last battery breakthrough fix. When is the next solar panel announcement?

Re:Charging amperage

[sribe]

Surely 4 times the amperage wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility?

Not beyond the realm of possibility, no. But requiring not just new wiring into your house, but probably new wiring of an entirely new kind, at higher voltage, with specificallly-designed safety measures in terms of conduit, how it's routed, protection against touching contacts, and so on.

Re:Charging amperage

[Carnivore]

The current HV battery is around 400V.

5 minute charge

[confused one]

Clearly, they're practicing some sort of black magic if they think they can charge a 60 or 85 kWh battery in 5 minutes. Either that or they have a connection directly to the power plant located just around the corner.

Re:Charging amperage

[Half-pint HAL]

Commercial charging stations.

Re:Charging amperage

[ihtoit]

20KW would *melt* domestic feeds even before you get to the meter. Over here the average home has a 60-100A meter fuse (with 60A becoming more and more common, I had to pretty much demand a 100A and a leg main out to my garage) at 220V, that's 13KW or so at the meter - before you get to the distribution bus. Your ring main is rated at 3.6KW max total load *for the entire circuit*.

Re:I call bullshit

[Half-pint HAL]

Anything can be achieved with a big enough array of capacitors. A motorway (en_US:freeway) charging station won't have constant demand, so not only would it be acceptable to charge up supercapacitors between cars, but also desirable -- plugging a charger like that straight into the mains is going to generate a heck of a spike, and it'll put a humungous strain on your transformers. (I know -- they use energon, not Li-ion.)

But consider COST

[timeOday]

The 10,000 cycles might be a bigger deal than the fast charging, because an increase in longevity is almost equivalent to a proportional cost reduction (which is the real big deal). For example, the amortized cost of battery-backup for solar or wind goes down by nearly 50% if the battery lasts twice as long. If a car battery is going to last for 20 years, the high upfront cost of an electric car would be largely offset by its high residual value - if nothing else you could sell the battery when the car wore out to be used in another car, or for grid backup etc.

Re:Charging amperage

[swillden]

Surely 4 times the amperage wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility?

Not beyond the realm of possibility, no. But requiring not just new wiring into your house, but probably new wiring of an entirely new kind, at higher voltage, with specificallly-designed safety measures in terms of conduit, how it's routed, protection against touching contacts, and so on.

You wouldn't need or want this sort of rapid charging capability at home. Slow charging works just fine at home, it's when you're traveling long distances or running around town for many hours that you need fast charging.

the problem with lithium ion technology

[ihtoit]

...is when it comes to fast charging the things. You run the risk of dendritic shorting, which is where lithium dendrites cross the electrolyte and touch the graphite electrode, causing the battery to short. THAT is where the heat comes from, not a dry chemical reaction. That's also where the risk of batteries exploding arises, and why certain laptop batteries have been exploding - thermal safeties have been omitted from aftermarket batteries, these are the ones that have been exploding because laptops in powered-off state are charging the batteries with the full whack of the PSU which causes the shorting. Without the safeties, the power isn't cut, the dendrites continue to grow until BOOM! Rechargeable batteries have an additive in the electrolyte that's supposed to inhibit dendrite growth, but it doesn't stop it, particularly when the battery is being abused. Anecdotally, I have rechargeable batteries that I've had for 20+ years and they still hold usable charge - for the simple reason that I have never and will never use a fast charger on them.

Re:Charging amperage

[roc97007]

20KW generators powered by diesel engines are pretty common...oh wait.

That's a succinct example of the difference between "zero emissions" and "zero point emissions".

Re:Charging amperage

[Charliemopps]

Ok, lets do some math...

70% of 85kwh = 59.5kwh
5min is a 12th of an hour.
So to charge a 59.5kwh battery in 5 min, you would need 12 * 59.5
So a 714KW charger
At 12v that would be 59500 amps. Which is insane.
I can't find any sort of documentation on that kind of cabling that would require.
But I can find documentation of 120vdc using about a 3inch diameter cable.
Which gives us an area for the cable of about 7 inches.
Given a Cable 6ft long to charge it, it would have a volume of 508in3
1in3 of copper weights .31 pounds
So your cable would weigh 157lbs.

Keep in mind, this is the total volume of the copper cable. You'd likely make it braided so it were flexible and it'd end up being larger than 3in in diameter at the end. You'd need to have a crane to charge your car.
I'm not saying that isn't possible, but given the amount of work involved wouldn't be a lot easier to swap out batteries like you do propane tanks on your gas grill? I mean, if there's already a crane involved. Then you don't need to amperage's so high you could weld asteroids together.

Re:Charging amperage

[sharknado]

Commercial charging stations.

I was thinking that it wouldn't be in the best interest of gas stations to provide a charging service because it would undermine their current business model, which is to distribute gasoline.

But then it occurred to me that if they make the same margins on the electricity as they do on the gas, then it's actually better because they wouldn't need to maintain a huge distribution network for gasoline.

Finally, I realized that switching to electric charging stations would enable small companies without a massive oil distribution network (or even the local electric utility) to compete, and make their margins a lot smaller.

So...I'm sticking to my original idea that gas companies will do everything they can to stop electric cars from reaching critical mass. Because at that point, they're essentially obsolete.

Re:Charging amperage

[Kiwikwi]

Enh, seems to be only off by a factor 10, though IANAEE (I am not an electrical engineer). Forgive me if I'm missing a factor 1.44 or something, below.

Obviously you don't charge an electric car battery at 12 V. What the individual cells do is irrelevant, since they charge in parallel; the bottle neck is the cable attached to the car (and cooling, but hey, we're assuming magic new wonder battery tech, so I'll conveniently ignore that issue).

The highest power available using standard CEE (IEC 60309) plugs and mainline voltage is 3 x 125A x 230V, or about 86 kW. This is not normal in a home, obviously, but you can easily get a couple of these in commercial installations.

Ignoring losses (I know, I know), 86 kW means one hour to fully charge a Tesla Model S with the big 85 kWh battery pack, but that's also a big battery pack.

Charging the 48 kWh battery of the upcoming Model E to 70 % will take: 70% x 48 kWh / 86 kW = 23 minutes.

Now, I would've thought 3 x 125 A x 230V was about the limit, simple due to the weight (those cables are very heavy!). But apparently, Tesla Superchargers go beyond this, to more than 120 kW (340 A x 360 V), with possible plans for 135 kW or even 150 kW. (I guess if the cable is short enough, and you increase voltage beyond mains voltage...) This gives you 70% x 48 kWh charging times in as little as 17 minutes (120 kW) or even 13 minutes (150 kW). Still a far cry from 2 minutes, but then the 17 minute figure is using current mass-market technology.

0% profit on gas. Snacks, sodas make 200%

[raymorris]

The GROSS markup on gasoline is around 2%. Once the station pays for pumps, signage, credit card transaction feesn taxes, etc they make no money on gas. The markup on fountain soda is close to 200%. Gas station owners don't care whether you come for gas, for electric charge, or any other reason. They just want you there for four minutes, long enough to buy a coffee or soda.

100kW battery makes sense

[Roger W Moore]

There could be such a thing as a 100kW battery: it would be a battery which can provide a power of 100kW. Not all batteries can do this since they have an internal resistance which either prevents this power from being achieved or will cause them to overheat and explode/catch fire even if it is. Indeed, assuming that this battery can carry a decent amount of energy, it is very likely that you could make a 100kW battery from it since it charges so quickly it must have a very low internal resistance.

Ironically there is no such thing as a 100kW/hr battery though...

You think electricity is expensive now?

[NotQuiteReal]

Just wait until electric cars that require commercial charging stations become popular.

The drop in gasoline tax revenue will logically lead to "car electricity" taxes... coming soon to a charging station near you.

Re:You think electricity is expensive now?

[fustakrakich]

What will probably happen is that you will pay an odometer tax every year when you get a new sticker for your plates. Simple and convenient.

200kW * 1 hour == 85kWh?!?

[Brannon]

Math is hard.

Re:Charging amperage

[bill_mcgonigle]

Where you did come up with 12v ? Electric car batteries are typically in the range of 350-400v

But how am I supposed to support the predetermined infeasibility of electric cars without a 150lb cable at 12V?

You cannot charge a car battery in 5 minutes

[goombah99]

It would take megawatts of power. Are you going to connect a megawatt cable to your car and expect it to work every time?

I want this to be true but...

[EmperorOfCanada]

Whenever I see a battery the size of a postage stamp as the prototype I get very nervous. I have read about a zillion revolutionary batteries where the scientists are holding up a fingernail sized bit and saying that all our battery needs have been met. But then the years go by and I never hear about the battery again. The only variation that I am seeing here is that one of them is holding a bottle of milk, while the other guy has a pretty geometric display of fingernail sized batteries.

Quite simply I want to see these guys replace the battery in a small electric car with a known range, battery, charge time, etc and then drive to exhaustion, recharge in 5 minutes and then drive to exhaustion a handful of times with a battery no bigger than the original. Then I want to see a machine that is doing something boringly energy predictable like boiling a tank of water until the charge runs out, recharging, and boiling the just refilled tank of water. That way they can say, this battery the size of a popcan boiled 18 liters of water (or whatever a good popcan sized battery could boil) every 20 minutes for the last 6 months and is able still boil 17.6 liters of water. (25 minutes per cycle for ~10,000 cycles). But some spec of a battery that is subjected to tests that are not real world enough with graphs of discharge rates and whatnot just don't electrify me. Those are great for a science journal but I want tangibles. Unless there is something screwy such as extreme altitude boiling water from room temperature takes a fairly fixed amount of energy.

Other benefits than a fast charge

[mrdogi]

Seems a lot of comments are focusing on how to actually do that 5-minute charge. Hardly anybody seems to have thought about the other aspects, especially the ultra-long life. If the batteries can last 20 years/10,000 charges/what ever, it seems to me this is a really good thing. I'd be just fine with a 1-hour charge, or even an overnight charge. Top off when I can, good to go.

Re:Charging amperage

[TigerNut]

Absolutely correct. Most electric cars (if you're keen, check out www.diyelectriccar.com) run at least 72V in a series string of at least 20 lithium-ion cells, and some run over 250V. Charging is done using a state-of-the-art high frequency AC/DC switching power supply with power factor correction, so that charging efficiency is maximized. For any given power transfer, double the voltage means half the amps, and that cuts the resistive power losses to 1/4, so it's always worthwhile to maximize the operating voltage within the bounds of the electronics (and safety considerations).

Why are slashdotters such idiots on this issue?

[Brannon]

This entire thread is full of jackasses computing the peak power draw and saying retarded things like "does it come with it's own fusion reactor?".

1. It's not a big deal to supply constant MWs to a relatively small number of charging stations along interstates. Next time you're driving along a highway look up slightly and notice the power wires carrying hundreds of MW's right next to you.

2. You don't have to size the power grid connection to cover peak demand, capacitors and batteries located at the refilling station are good at averaging out the peaks so that you just have to worry about some windowed average demand--and average demand is just not that stressful. Think of it this way, gas stations would also run out of gasoline quickly if they were refilling 8 cars at a time every 5 minutes for the entire day. OMG is the gas station right next to a refinery?!?

3. The vast majority of miles driven are daily commuting miles, which will be covered by low & slow charging at home.

4. Tesla basically does this *already* with their supercharger network. Why is it so hard to grasp this concept?

ask Tesla. I bet they know why

[raymorris]

> why would you charge at a station if you could just charge overnight at home.

Tesla is spending gobs of money to put "quick" charge stations everywhere they can. I'm guessing they understand the market better than you or I do, having spent millions researching it. If they think it's so important, they are probably right.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

There is no battery

[Animats]

Prof Chen and his team will be applying for a Proof-of-Concept grant to build a large-scale battery prototype.

In other words, they haven't built a battery yet.

Why are so many "nanotechnology" articles like this? People find some new surface chemistry phenomenon in the lab, and immediately announce it as if it were a product ready to ship. Then it turns out that the phenomenon only works under limited conditions, or is really expensive to make, or doesn't even perform in the intended application. The nanotechnology crowd should STFU until they can demo.

The diode voltage drop would cause power loss.

[Futurepower(R)]

I think there would be too much power loss in the diodes. Quote from Wikipedia about diodes:

"In a small silicon diode at rated currents, the voltage drop is about 0.6 to 0.7 volts. The value is different for other diode types -- Schottky diodes can be rated as low as 0.2 V, Germanium diodes 0.25 to 0.3 V, and red or blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) can have values of 1.4 V and 4.0 V respectively.[16]

At higher currents the forward voltage drop of the diode increases. A drop of 1 V to 1.5 V is typical at full rated current for power diodes."

At 400 Amps, the power loss with a 1 volt drop is 400 Watts.

Re:The diode voltage drop would cause power loss.

[itzly]

It's about the principle. You don't have to use real diodes. You can use high power switching elements and get the same effect. Look up 'ideal diode', or 'active diode'.