Storedot Breakthrough
The Israeli battery company, Storedot. They’ve been working on their super fast charging, very high energy density batteries now for a while.
Polestar 5 Adopts Storedot Innovation
People haven’t really taken them all that seriously, but they probably should have because Polestar have been, and Polestar have now put their batteries in the new Polestar 5.
Turns out these batteries are as good as Storedot said they would be. Storedot has been working on very high energy density, silicon-doped batteries, which are, to be honest, incredibly impressive.
The industry didn’t really believe Storedot claims. They thought that they were exaggerating or something like that.
Science Behind the Speed
However, Polestar have confirmed that these batteries will actually charge in 10 minutes from 10 to 80 %.
And staggeringly, I mean, They are maintaining a charge rate of well over 320 kilowatt.
But on average, that’s through the entire charging peak was around 380 kilowatt. Ranging anxiety is not as big of a deal as what people think, especially when you have the ability to fast-charge your car this quickly.
Israeli tech firm, Storedot, has put its batteries into the new Polestar Polestar 5, which is going to be released by the end of this year, and the battery is charged from 10 to 80%, which is the industry standard, in 10 minutes.
Real-World Testing: Impressive Results
This test was conducted using a Polestar 5 with a 77 kilowatt hour battery. It’s not a small battery it’s still a pretty big battery pack.
Now, this means the vehicle could actually regain 200 miles or 322 kilometers of range in only 10 minutes.
With this new technology on longer journeys, when drivers do stop, they’ll be able to spend less time charging and be back on the road much faster than before, said Polestar’s CEO.
In fact, that time, stopping, will be similar to what you experience with a petrol car today.
The battery is using the Polestar 5 were equipped with Storedot XFC technology, which uses a silicon dominant cell.
The experimental batteries have excellent cooling properties. They have a high energy density, and this means vehicles don’t need to have any extra cooling equipment and weight to make fast charging safe.
In theory, these batteries are not only good for their higher energy density, they’re much faster charging, but also for their ability to not need all the extra cooling technology which makes cars heavier or EVs heavier.
This test is the first time that Stordot extreme fast charging or XFC batteries have been proven outside the laboratory in a real vehicle.
A lot of people are surprised by this they’re thinking, Oh, Stordot batteries were real we cant wrote them off as being just laboratory claims that weren’t going to be legit, but it turns out they are.
During the demonstration, the Polestar 5 started charging at a speed of 310 kilowatt.
That’s what it averaged, but it actually charged at a top speed of 370 kilowatt. What’s really important here is the average speed.
Being able to average 310 kilowatt speeds for the entire portion is staggering. It’s very unusual for to happen.
Normally, your car maybe 250 kilowatt charging speed, but you only hit that for maybe a few seconds.
In this case, though, the car has hit 360, and it’s averaged 310, which is incredibly fast. Now, the key question here is reliability.
Challenges and Opportunities
How long will these battery packs last for? No one really knows the answer to that question.
We are very excited to share this impressive achievement today and proud to be on this journey with Polestar, said the CEO of Storedot.
This battery breakthrough revolutionizes ownership by eradicating the barrier of range and charging anxiety.
Once and for all, this driver will be able to travel long distances with the same freedom and convenience as traditional fossil fuel-powered vehicles.
Now, there is a big question, which is this, where can you find a charger that will be able to charge your EV? If you were to buy a Polestar EV with this new battery pack, where do you get chargers that can charge it at these speeds? You’d be right.
At this point in time, there’s very few of them. But within a few years, that will change.
More and more super fast chargers are being built. Still considered an experimental technology, we don’t know yet if the Polestar 5 will come with this battery. But Polestar are saying that it will.
They’re saying it will have 100 kilowatt hour size battery. That could give the new Polestar 5, 1000 kilometers or 600 miles of range.
Now, if you’re wondering what the energy density of these batteries is, it’s extremely high. It’s 300 Watts per kilogram.
You can see why a 600 miles range would be realistically possible in the real world with a battery with an energy density that’s that high.
To give you some context, BYD’s new blade battery, which is, of course, a different chemistry, lithium-ion phosphate, has an energy density of 180 Watts per kilogram
So 180 versus 300. In theory, the battery pack could be much more than 100 kilowatt.
You could be, say, putting in a battery pack of around 70 kilowatt-hours in a smaller car, and that could still potentially provide you with over 500 miles of range.
Combined with charging speeds like this, well, electric cars are going to get very, very exciting, very, very fast.