Extreme fast charge test clocks Polestar 5 at 1,200 miles per hour

On the road to delivering 100 miles of EV range in five minutes by the end of 2024, tech firm StoreDot has installed its extreme fast charging cells in a Polestar 5 prototype, and zapped the 77-kWh pack to 80% capacity in 10 minutes.

For many car drivers, the journey from home to work or the mall or school is a fairly short one, well within the per-charge battery range of modern electric family cars anyway. But those needing to make longer daily trips are going to be plugged in more often.

DC fast-charging is already available for quick top-ups, but you could still need to find something to do while you wait a while. What if such pit stops could take around the same time as filling up a gas guzzler? That's precisely what StoreDot is aiming for with its extreme fast charging (XFC) high energy silicon-dominant battery cells – with 100 miles (160 km) of battery range in exchange for three minutes plugged in as the target for 2028.

Last year, performance EV brand Polestar revealed its intention to "revolutionize the ownership experience for EV owners with the ability to recharge in minutes" by collaborating with StoreDot to install a full-scale XFC battery module in a Polestar 5 prototype. And that's precisely what's happened.

Jumping out of the lab, the 77-kWh battery pack is reported to have consistently pulled a whopping 310 kW from a DC charger, and peaked at 370 kilowatts. The battery pack was juiced from 10% to 80% in 10 minutes, and was monitored throughout the tests, but didn't rise above the "target operating temperature set by engineers of both teams."

"We are very excited to share this impressive achievement today and are proud to be on this journey with Polestar, a leading car brand who envisions high performance cars with a sustainable future," said StoreDot CEO Dr. Doron Myersdorf. "We're happy to see our partner is among the first EV car makers to acknowledge that XFC is now a necessary standard to make vast EV adoption a reality. With our extreme fast charging technology, you can add 200 miles in under 10 minutes. This breakthrough revolutionizes EV ownership experience by eradicating the barrier of range and charging anxiety once and for all. Drivers can now truly travel long distances with the same freedom and convenience as traditional petrol-powered vehicles."

StoreDot says that conventional graphite anodes are already being pushed to their performance limits, but that switching to silicon for its XFC cells enables development to continue in terms of energy density and charging rates.

However, as the team notes in the video above, it "wasn't easy to find a cable that could handle this current" so we're not going to see this technology available at a charging station just yet. But StoreDot has "100-in-5" in its sights for this year, 100 miles in four minutes by 2026 and delivery of 100 miles in three minutes by 2028.

Source: StoreDot