Typically, it takes around 10 hours to charge an electric vehicle. Even with fast-charging techniques, you're still looking at a minimum of 30 minutes – and that's if there's an open spot at a charging station.
Not to throw water on the idea, but this is a theoretical capacity and charging boost. To be sure, all positive developments in battery charging are good ones, but don’t expect to see 6 minute charging for at least another 10 years. This material has not been tested at scale, and transferring that much energy that quickly over any sort of traditional cable would generate an absurd amount of heat.
So even if the battery material can scale up, it must go into production, and the charging stations will need to be upgraded.
Realistically, if they can reduce the time to under an hour with the current infrastructure and auto manufacturing, then that will reduce demand for newer battery technology, pushing upgrades even further into the future.
Eh. Even if this were possible, as a Tesla owner I don’t think it’s a huge deal.
We took our Tesla on a multi-state road trip last winter and found the Supercharger network more than sufficient. It never took more than 20-25 minutes to fully recharge, and after 3+ hours of driving it’s nice to take a break like that and stretch your legs. Virtually all the chargers are conveniently located in shopping centers, near restaurants & coffee shops, etc. so getting out and walking around is nice to do.
I am guessing that math is based on a high-capacity EV battery on a home 240v circuit. Much shorter on a fast charger of course and 110v would be days. I can't see anyone at home charging an EV in minutes at home anytime soon. It would be some kind of scene of our Doc's lab in Back to the Future.
Yeah but I'd still need to hit 88 miles per hour in a Delorean to get home, and let me tell you that is by far the most improbable thing that happens in those movies.
Environmentalists paying attention to battery tech have learned too well to not take these kinds of announcements seriously after years and years of no major changes.
The real spoiler is that for easily 4/5 or more of people, it doesn't even matter. Charging happens at home, overnight, or at work during the workday. Multi-hour charge times are irrelevant for these people. Super mega ultra fast charge to 400+ mile ranges are reserved for a minority of people that make regular, long road trips and for people that currently park on the street with zero access to regular charge infrastructure who would be WAY better-served by their city taking bikeped/public transit infrastructure seriously.
Mostly, tech like this exclusively has applications for commercial charge stations designed to be drop-in gas station replacements. We'd nearly all save a lot of money and get better service from not trying to replicate that kind of infrastructure in our future.
But then again, I'm the guy discouraging people from buying any vehicle, EV or otherwise, and instead drive whatever beater they already have right to their MPC meetings to demand better urban design.
Insert some dude who lives way out in the countryside replyguying me with "well actually I drive 700miles round trip every day and you can't speak for me!" here.
I agree. But it is still nice to have fast charging when you need to fill up on the road. People who aren’t used to “filling up” at home overnight will think that fast charging is far more important than it actually is, but it is still a quality of life improvement to most electric car owners for the occasional long trip.
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