Commercial EV company Tevva has welcomed a technological breakthrough in the US which enables rapid charging of batteries, potentially adding 200 miles of driving time.
Scientists said they have discovered a way for vehicle batteries to take in 400Kw of energy in just 10 minutes, overcoming a major hurdle currently surrounding electric vehicles.
“We demonstrated that we can charge an electrical vehicle in ten minutes for a 200 to 300 mile range,” said Chao-Yang Wang, professor of materials science and engineering at Pennsylvania State University.
“And we can do this maintaining 2,500 charging cycles, or the equivalent of half a million miles of travel.
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“Fast charging is the key to enabling wide spread introduction of electric vehicles,” he added.
Researchers achieved the results by raising the temperature of an experimental battery to 60 degrees Celsius during the charge cycle, then lowering it back down as it was used.
Gary Dunn, power programme manager at Tevva Motors said any advancement in battery technology was “a great step forward for EV and is welcomed by us at Tevva.”
He added: “This fast charging technology will enable EV to compete against the current fossil fuel industry on an even broader range of duty cycles.
“As a company, we at Tevva embrace advancement like this to enhance our competitiveness but, as we are not a battery cell manufacturer, we can but wait for these types of products to become available to us for use in medium and heavy duty trucks.”
