Electric car battery charges in less than five minutes during track test

An electric car battery developed by British start-up Nyobolt has managed to charge from 10% to 80% in four minutes and 37 seconds in its first live demonstration.

This goal was achieved through a purpose-built sports car concept at a test track in Bedford, and is part of industry-wide efforts to enable electric vehicles (EVs) to recharge more quickly.

In comparison, an existing Tesla compressor can charge a car battery to 80% in 15 to 20 minutes.

Experts say eliminating so-called “range anxiety” is key to increasing electric vehicle adoption – but also stress the importance of improving charging infrastructure.

“Developing technology that allows people to charge faster, in the same time it currently takes to fill up a car, is really important,” Paul Shearing, professor of sustainable energy engineering at the University of Oxford, told the BBC.

But he added that more chargers of all types were needed.

“People will want fast charging infrastructure regardless of what car they use – everyone wants to do it faster,” he said.

The sports car that had the Nyobolt battery installed – and which was tested for two days this week – achieved a range of 120 miles after four minutes.

A Tesla charged to 80% would typically have a range of up to 200 miles.

Dr Sai Shivareddy, co-founder of Nyobolt, told the BBC he was pleased with the results but admitted the tests had been “nerve-wracking”.

The demonstration was performed live in front of an invited audience of industry professionals for the first time – with a few hiccups along the way.

Challenges included the UK heatwave, a failure of the concept car’s cooling system and a standard on-site charger that was not manufactured by Nyobolt.

These factors prevented the company from recreating the lab results, in which it claims the battery can charge from 0% to 100% in six minutes.

Still, Dr Shivareddy described the event as “a milestone for electrification” and joked that his own car was still charging, having plugged it in when he arrived earlier in the day.

Nyobolt says it has no plans to make its own vehicles and plans to partner with existing car brands, with the battery potentially being installed in electric vehicles “on a small scale” within a year.

The necessary powerful 350kW DC ultra-fast chargers are publicly available in the UK but are not yet widespread.

The company also claims to have minimized degradation: the battery still charges to 80% after 4,000 cycles.

A full cycle is a charge from 0 to 100%, but it does not need to be done all at once. For example, two 50% loads count as one cycle.

Apple claims that the iPhone 15 battery will have 80% functionality after 1,000 cycles.

There is a global race to develop faster-charging, more powerful, lighter and longer-lasting batteries.

Last year, Toyota announced that a technical breakthrough would allow it to develop a solid-state battery capable of charging in ten minutes and having a range of 1,200 km (754 m).

And a compact charger developed by US start-up Gravity can add 200 miles of range to an electric vehicle in less than 13 minutes.

But Dr Edward Brightman, senior lecturer in chemical engineering at the University of Strathclyde, said while fast charging is useful for long journeys, the real barrier to electric vehicle adoption still lies in infrastructure Support.

“Electric cars are not really limited by batteries anymore,” he said.

“We urgently need to modernize the grid and deploy fast chargers capable of delivering the charge to the battery.”