Electric car batteries with five-minute charging times produced

[Richard n Ann]

I think super conductors would help keep the cable size down (maybe something else to pour money into). But all this upheaval and investment /building factories, mining materials etc will give a huge increase in emissions. I read an article a few years ago that said the least polluting car is the one you have.. ie building new cars pollutes.

Or we could all move to the area where we work. Would work for some

 

[autorouter]

Aircraft was only stationary after 36 secs. from abandoning the take-off

The point was, there was no crash, no impact, no landing on water, no hostile action. The problem was nothing but the engine fire and the spread to the fuel tanks. The evacuation was delayed, there was bad communication, etc, but nobody suggested it was the fuel type that was the problem.

 

[olley]

A US company is suggesting adding 20% hydrogen to the domestic gas grid, this is the max that you can add without making any alterations to domestic appliances.
Garages can the easily extract the hydrogen to refuel vehicles.

In a small country like the UK with an extensive gas grid most garages would be able to easily and cheaply supply hydrogen.

 

[Gromett]

Name the companies that can charge thier batteries in 5 minutes at the same capacity as Storedot as all the media news I have seen is saying that Storedot is the first to do a 5 minute charge or are they all wrong?

You are mistaking what I said or perhaps I didn't explain myself properly. Companies that make batteries can make ones that charge in 5 minutes. The problem is they don't last too many cycles OR have very low energy density.

Let's define "a charge". A lithium battery works on a CC/CV charging cycle. What this means is you initially set the maximum charge current. So a cell at 2.0V would be charged at a charge voltage that achieves this current. This charge voltage will slowly rise as the cells voltage rises as it charges. Once the charge voltage reaches the cells maximum voltage the charge switches to constant voltage mode and the current will slowly fall as the cells voltage rises to meet this charge voltage. This is the basic physics of bulk charging all batteries.

Ok, with that in mind, the only difference between batteries is the charge current of the CC part of the cycle. This is specified as xxC for instance most cheap 18650 cells can manage at least 3C. This means it can charge the CC section of the charge cycle at 3 x the capacity. So if you have a 1AH battery it can charge at 3Amps. This means a 20 minute charge cycle for the CC part.

Battery makers do produce batteries than can cope with a 20C for instance LTO (lithium Titinate) can be charged up to 98% in 8 minutes at 10C charge rate. To get to 20C charge rate you have to do some pretty decent thermal management which probably wouldn't be possible in a car.
There are a couple of issues with fast charging. 1st is the faster you charge the lower the number of cycles your battery will last for. 2nd is that the energy density of the highest charging chemistry is lower, Finally the faster you charge the better your thermal management needs to be.

So plenty of companies can currently make 12C rated batteries which will complete the bulk (CC) phase of their charge in 5 minutes or less. Batteries that can survive 20C are available for specialist applications. LTO batteries are starting to come into their own recently. Here is one example of a news bulletin from 2018 almost 3 years ago.

Li-Ions Capable of 20C Charge/Discharge and 18,000 Cycles at 10C - New Industry Products

eepower.com

[/URL]

Remember 20C = 60/20 = 3 minutes charge rate which is faster than the 5 minutes.

I am interested in the StoreDot technology but I would need to see more. Is this 5 minute charge rate just the CC part of the CC/CV cycle? Or is it the average rate over the full 100% charge cycle? What is the lifespan of the battery if you use this fastest rate all the time. What are the thermal management requirements of the battery to charge at this rate?

Tesla's new batteries using metallic silicon anode alongside their tabless design looks to be able to achieve similar charge rates at the cell level. However, at the pack level the thermals would prevent such high charge rates.

 

[Gromett]

Coolcats I just realised I didn't answer your question directly did I?

The link I gave was a news bulletin about a new development. Did Toshiba get anywhere with this?

Yes they did. The LTO batteries they produce charge up to 80% in 6 minutes. This is a commercial product available now and in products in the world.

They could push these batteries harder at the cost of lifespan and achieve 5 minute charge times trivially.

What is SCiB™ | SCiB™ Rechargeable battery | Toshiba

The Toshiba SCiB™, a highly safe rechargeable battery, has six outstanding characteristics.

www.scib.jp

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[Gromett]

Coolcats

Sorry to post again so soon. I was curious if they had released any batteries that utilised even faster charge rates and found this;

How does a 1 Minute charge time sound to you?

SCiB™ Cells | SCiB™ Rechargeable battery | Toshiba

This web page shows Toshiba’s SCiB™ rechargeable battery cells. Toshiba provides three types of SCiB™ cells: high-power, high-energy, and combination cells.

www.scib.jp

 

[Sandancers]

No not any more so than other high voltage electrical fires. There are standard operating procedures.

Question then, have you ever had to deal with an incident where people were trapped and injured where you knew there was live 800v DC conductors nearby ?

 

[Raul]

Somebody was exploring the solid state ceramic electrolyte. Anyone know what happened ? If that really works it will be next generation of batteries.

 

[glenn2926]

Question then, have you ever had to deal with an incident where people were trapped and injured where you knew there was live 800v DC conductors nearby ?

Not personally I haven’t. I’ve been to an incident involving a Prius car but I was the pump operator so didn’t get close.

 

[Sandancers]

The problem I have with this talk of fitting 400v DC or even 800v DC equipment in a vehicle is that I look at that and think that it's inherently dangerous.

Now it's OK saying there are procedures to deal with high voltage incidents. But 5 years ago London Fire Brigade would have told you that they had robust procedures to deal with fires in high rise blocks of flats. Which of course was pre Grenfell.

I was watching a program a couple of nights ago about the M1 motorway, it was showing the control rooms with all the cameras, it showed how breakdowns were sorted etc. It also showed the roadworks which are in progress to make the M1 into a smart motorway. They had the guy on who developed the smart motorway idea and he was all for it. He said "it is the only way forwards to carry the amount of traffic and accidents have not increased since we use the hard shoulder as a running lane". Seemed a dead clever chap.

But if smart motorways are so good, why do I inherently think they are very dangerous ? And worry about breaking down in the lane that should be a hard shoulder ?

I used to work on battery banks running at 82v DC and you can believe there were loads of procedures around working on them even at that relatively low voltage.

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[TDub49]

A similar disaster happened at Manchester airport some years ago. A plane was stationary on the ground, and the engine caught fire, and it spread to the rest of the plane. Due to a delayed evacuation, many people died. That was aviation fuel (kerosene). Nobody suggested banning it.

LPG is actually used as an explosive in some ground attack munitions. Is that banned?

Hydrogen is no more dangerous than any other fuel.

And, it didn't help that someone thought it was a great idea to coat the Hindenburg in a particularly reactive paint that many believe was the cause of the fire. It's possible we've moved on from that . . . .

On the topic of the fast charging batteries, as far as I understood the article, they are technically possible but not within three or four years of mass production. It's encouraging that they might signal a move away from lithium dependence (only the besotted would see replacing one unsustainable fuel source for another as being a solution to the destruction of the environment) and that can only be a good thing.

 

[Jim]

BUT, how many kW would be drawn at a motorway service station to charge at this rate on a busy day?

But how busy would the busiest petrol stations be if 80% of people had a petrol station at home and filled up before they left on their uk average 9 miles a day. They'd not be busy at all.

The vast majority of people will be topping their batteries at home so there would be far fewer fills at service stations than we might imagine.

 

[chrisgreen]

Not five mins but ten.

$3,500 EV battery prototype promises 200-mile range on a 10-minute charge

Around 12 months ago we looked at an innovative prototype battery for electric vehicles that was highly promising on several fronts, including being able to be recharged in just 10 minutes for hundreds of miles of range. The researchers behind it have continued tweaking their approach, and have…

newatlas.com

 

[scally]

You are correct it you apply this technology to privately owned vehicles. With the same numbers of privately owned vehicles that you currently have in the UK.

But lets imagine 15 years time. Self driving cars have become the norm. The last petrol / diesel cars are in use but being scrapped at an increasing rate. Apart from ones which are kept as treasured hobbies.

Now, if you now longer need to own a car as the self driving ones are available via an app. you don't need the electrical infrastructure in each street / house to be upgraded as the self driving cars will all return to a charging hub, fed via a national grid substation for recharging.

Maybe motorway service stations would have charging points, maybe they would not be needed ?

Can't see this happening in 50 years let alone 15

 

[scally]

I imagine the charge point stations will eventually have their own dedicated substations. 11000volts in and whatever out without disrupting any other power users.
Bearing in mind, charge points will be as, if not more, numerous as they are for petrol/diesel today

All very well but cant see this being managed on the current ideology of green energy production even with all the windfarms and solar arrays we cannot supply enough for todays consumption

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[Tombola]

Aircraft was only stationary after 36 secs. from abandoning the take-off.

Full AAIB report here

8/1988 Boeing 737-236, G-BGJL, 22 August 1985

www.gov.uk

Geoff

I was there that day, getting the mother in law fear of flying out the way before our flight 2 days later.

Didnt go dwon well

 

[gpat]

A similar disaster happened at Manchester airport some years ago. A plane was stationary on the ground, and the engine caught fire, and it spread to the rest of the plane. Due to a delayed evacuation, many people died. That was aviation fuel (kerosene). Nobody suggested banning it.

LPG is actually used as an explosive in some ground attack munitions. Is that banned?

Hydrogen is no more dangerous than any other fuel.

I'm not sure that is true. Hydrogen is explosive over a wide range of concentrations. LpG has a very much more narrow concentration range at which is will explode (or combust to be correct)

Hydrogen 4 to 75%
Propane 2 to 10%

That means that if you have a propane leak you have to be unlucky to have a fire, with hydrogen you would have to be lucky not to.

 

[Tombola]

It doesn’t matter what you or I think Gromett it is clear there is commercial interest in this area so time will tell. The companies that are investing in the R&D are not stupid. There is space for both battery and Hydrogen vehicles some of which exist more will come to the market place.

Hmmm?
betamax / vhs springs to mind
you hit the nail on the head with commercial interest. This is why Hydrogen is still in nappies for more personal use.
Cost
storage issues
transportation
Infrastructure cost vs ROI
and on and on

in theory to the mere mortal like me, its looks good, but get the pen and paper out with a calculator and whooooa.

BUT for commercial use, ships, trains and the like, some of which are already using hydrogen, (ships demineralising their own sea water) and using solar to power it, are real world trials, see the vessel "The Energey Observer".
But even this, to be scaled up for true commercial use seems too far off.

The the hydrogen trains, tend to be battery powered but fuelled by hydrogen. Only time will tell but I fear hydrogen will be the new betamax

 

[Tombola]

You are correct it you apply this technology to privately owned vehicles. With the same numbers of privately owned vehicles that you currently have in the UK.

But lets imagine 15 years time. Self driving cars have become the norm. The last petrol / diesel cars are in use but being scrapped at an increasing rate. Apart from ones which are kept as treasured hobbies.

Now, if you now longer need to own a car as the self driving ones are available via an app. you don't need the electrical infrastructure in each street / house to be upgraded as the self driving cars will all return to a charging hub, fed via a national grid substation for recharging.

Maybe motorway service stations would have charging points, maybe they would not be needed ?

Similar as what has been predicted, car ownership dipping over time and streets having "banks" of self driving cars on call, literally rented/programmed for your essential daily trips, constantly pre booked spread over 5-10-15 customers always on call with literally thousands of riders pre planned and booked. i.e. you pay for it even when you dont require "collecting" that day via the app.

Lets face it most cars sit on a works car park or garage for 80% of its life.

But hey, maybe by that time we will be using our jet packs anyway

 

[Coolcats]

But how busy would the busiest petrol stations be if 80% of people had a petrol station at home and filled up before they left on their uk average 9 miles a day. They'd not be busy at all.

The vast majority of people will be topping their batteries at home so there would be far fewer fills at service stations than we might imagine.

Jim this is where a vehicle with a range of say 100-150 miles would meet the needs of the average person, an issue is not the the average 9 miles its when you travel say 80 miles for an occasional day trip only to find one EV charging point at the distant end you may not make it back, it was this that stopped us investing in an eGolf last year. Once the charging network is more common in the area's we visit then we will invest.

The other point is that there are many (majority) of the population who cannot plug in at home, its the same or similar reason people store their MoHo's away from home, the house they live in does not have a suitable parking space and one reason we opted for a 4.5 metre PVC we can both park on the road and on the drive.

If you go to the Rockies in Canada, public carparks have hookup points and the cars drive around with wires sticking out the bonnets as it gets so cold they hook the vehicles up when parked so the engines and batteries can be warmed to stop freezing, it seems to be a public amenity or its costed into the parking charges.

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[Gromett]

Somebody was exploring the solid state ceramic electrolyte. Anyone know what happened ? If that really works it will be next generation of batteries.

Quantumscape. Making what appears to be very good progress. Recently did a presentation (available on Youtube).

Making test data and samples available for external testing at the moment. The reason I take this company seriously is that JB Straubel has joined their board of directors.
This is the cofounder of Tesla and an expert on electric vehicles an in particular EV batteries.

 

[Gromett]

The problem I have with this talk of fitting 400v DC or even 800v DC equipment in a vehicle is that I look at that and think that it's inherently dangerous.

moving 2 tonnes of metal at 70mph is inherently dangerous. Carrying 80+ litres of highly flamable liquid in that vehicel is inherently dangerous.
Personally in a car fire I am more concerned about the toxic fumes, the fuel tank exploding and the tyres exploding.

Mitigating the risks from 800V is much easier than mitigating other risks in a fire. Rubber gloves and rubber soles on boots and electric is pretty much a non issue.
Insulated tools.

This is just on the firefighters side. The manufacturer will be putting safety measures in place as well. There is always an isolator mechanism available.

On the High voltage side I have no concerns for the firemen, as they can and will be trained to handle it like any other hazardous or dangerous material/situation.

I would be more worried about garages with poor training or inexperienced mechanics "having a go". I expect to see more "mechanics" die to high voltage shocks than firemen.

 

[Gromett]

On the Question of EV fires. I have a few further thoughts.
An EV is less likely to catch fire due to it not having a combustion cycle nor does it generate high temperatures to place like the exhaust and exhaust manifold. It is too early to get accurate statistics but all indications are that there will be a 500% reduction in car fires.
This is good not only for the firefighters but for the occupants. The thought of being trapped in a petrol car with leaking fuel running down the road would terrify most people (if they thought about it). However, an EV fire will start slowly and gives enough time before it breaches the firewalls. So even in the event of a fire there tends to a lot more time to exit the vehicle.

The death reduction due to reduced pollution will overwhelm the small number of deaths caused by high voltage incidents.

The biggest issue with EV's in relation to fire is re-ignition. This is of concern to recovery truck drivers and storage yards. Work is ongoing on systems such as a fire blanket to cover the entire car during transport, full submersion of batteries at storage/scrap yards, and semi enclosed areas (brick walls, no roof) to store cars for a period of time after a fire.

As with any new technology, there will be new issues but over time experience will be gained and new procedures and techniques developed to handle and mitigate any new risks.

It is my view based on lots of reading on this subject that deaths from car related accidents will rapidly reduce as EV's roll out. They are safer due to their design than an ICE car, they are safer still due to the loss of the fuel and high temps, they are safer still due to low centre of gravity and more precise control of the traction to the wheels. When you add in the reduced deaths caused by pollution, worrying about 800V is a little bit unnecessary.

 

[glenn2926]

EVs will probably burn less often that ICE cars. I cannot remember going to a crash involving a car on fire. I have attended many car fires but none where there has been persons in the car. They don’t burst into flame in crashes really, only on TV. Almost all the car fires I attended were arson/ deliberate. A couple where the driver noticed smoke from under the dash and pulled over.

 

[Gromett]

Name the companies that can charge thier batteries in 5 minutes at the same capacity as Storedot as all the media news I have seen is saying that Storedot is the first to do a 5 minute charge or are they all wrong?

I gave you an answer to this, you haven't responded. Just curious if you had seen it?

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[Gromett]

The problem I have with this talk of fitting 400v DC or even 800v DC equipment in a vehicle is that I look at that and think that it's inherently dangerous.

I previously mentioned the high voltage cutoff. Just watching the start of the Sandy Munro teardown of the 2021 Model 3 and it is mentioned here. I have set it to start at the relevant point.

 

[Sandancers]

I previously mentioned the high voltage cutoff. Just watching the start of the Sandy Munro teardown of the 2021 Model 3 and it is mentioned here. I have set it to start at the relevant point.

A flimsy plastic tag ? Which might be under tangled metal or just missing ? I'd hope there would be much better safety features than that !

 

[Gromett]

A flimsy plastic tag ? Which might be under tangled metal or just missing ? I'd hope there would be much better safety features than that !

Watch earlier in the video. That area is under a big plastic panel with a slot for the tag.

 

[Gromett]

Coolcats
This article explains some of my caution about welcoming storedot's advances.

What’s the technology behind a five-minute charge battery?

The company behind a new battery isn’t saying much, but we figured a few things out.

arstechnica.com

I still think Quantumscape is a better bet.

 

[Coolcats]

Coolcats
This article explains some of my caution about welcoming storedot's advances.

What’s the technology behind a five-minute charge battery?

The company behind a new battery isn’t saying much, but we figured a few things out.

arstechnica.com

I still think Quantumscape is a better bet.

Just as ICE engines continued to develop so will batteries there will be new ‘leaders’ every other month/year or so. It’s progress as will Hydrogen technology change.

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