HERZELIYA, Israel—Battery charging and range anxiety have long been the Achilles heel of electric vehicles. However, a startup company called StoreDot claims to have reached a milestone by developing a lithium-ion battery that can charge in only five minutes—approximately the same amount of time that it takes to refuel a conventional internal combustion-engine vehicle.
StoreDot’s extreme fast-charging (XFC) technology uses nanoscale metalloids to replace graphite in the battery cell’s anode, which it claims is “a key breakthrough in overcoming major issues in safety, battery cycle life and swelling.”
The company recently demonstrated its device on a two-wheeled electric vehicle using sample cells made in China by EVE Energy Co. StoreDot plans to have a second-generation, silicon-dominant prototype battery available later this year.
“[This] milestone is just the beginning,” says Doron Myersdorf, CEO of StoreDot. “We're on the cusp of achieving a revolution in the EV charging experience that will remove the critical barrier to mass adoption of EVs.
“Unlike competing technologies which require significant capital expenditure in bespoke manufacturing equipment, [our] XFC batteries are designed to be produced on existing lithium-ion production lines at EVE Energy,” claims Myersdorf.
