Every few weeks, the world’s media publishes an article on a fantastical breakthrough in electric vehicle (EV) battery technology that enables cars to be charged in as little as five minutes.
These technological breakthroughs are supposedly set to revolutionise EVs by allowing owners to charge up quickly away from home, removing some of the key drawbacks of owning an EV: range anxiety and inconvenience.
The latest article by David Campbell at News.com.au is indicative of the hype:
Huge tech announcements out of China promised an EV battery that could charge to 520km of driving range in just five minutes…
The five-minute promise came from Chinese battery giant CATL, which supplies cells to some of the world’s biggest electric car makers such as BMW, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz and Tesla…
Unveiling the second generation of their Shenxing battery this week, CATL also claimed it was capable of charging quickly in freezing temperatures—a feat most EVs traditionally struggle to achieve.
CATL’s cold-weather demo at the announcement showed an EV charging from 5% to 80% in just 15 minutes at temperatures of -10C…
Chinese EV giant BYD has now found itself upstaged by CATL after last month announcing a superfast charging system of its own – 400km of range in five minutes.
Meanwhile, Tesla’s most advanced charging systems offer 320km of range in 15 minutes.
Australia cannot achieve these types of charging times in practice; they are purely theoretical.
Why? Because of the inextricable link between the power of a charger and the duration required to charge an EV battery.
Existing Australian infrastructure also cannot achieve the necessary electricity throughput to charge an EV battery in five minutes. To do so at scale would require hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in new poles, high-capacity wires, transformers, substations, etc, which is cost-prohibitive.
A standard 60 kWh Tesla battery would require a charger capable of delivering 720 Kw of throughput to charge the battery in only five minutes. This industrial-scale level of electricity is required to charge only a single EV battery.
However, the more users you have at a charging station, the slower the recharge rate. Only a certain amount of electricity can flow to a charging station at one time. Therefore, if a station has multiple EV chargers, the rate of flow of electricity to each charger will be determined by the number of cars charging at a time.
The cost would also be prohibitive, even if one could miraculously charge up in five minutes. Fast chargers typically cost more to charge than slower chargers due to the amount of costly capital investment required to deliver such high throughput. Fast charging needs a bigger connection to the grid. As a result, it costs far more.
Finally, the faster the charge, the more stress it places on the battery, reducing its useful life. Who wants to have to spend $10,000 to $15,000 to replace their EV battery prematurely?
These problems are baked into the laws of physics. If you want to charge in half the time, you must double the amount of power in your charger. More power means more expense. And the more people there are charging at once, the less throughput there is.
The above factors are why pure battery EVs will struggle to take off at the population level.
EVs are fine if you have off-street parking, can charge overnight at home, and only make shorter trips. But they are highly inconvenient if you rely on public chargers.
