Slow battery charging times are impeding the global switch to electric vehicles (EVs), but this breakthrough battery tech from Nyobolt could mean charging your electric car in under four minutes.
CEO and co-founder Sai Shivareddy explains what could be the next EBV revolution on CGTN’s Global Business.
CEO and co-founder Sai Shivareddy explains what could be the next EBV revolution on CGTN’s Global Business.
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MotorTranscript
00:00Critics of electric vehicles often say their limited range, long charging times and the degradation of car batteries are all barriers to buying these cars, but that might be about to change.
00:12An electric car battery developed by a UK startup has successfully charged from 10 to 80% in just over four and a half minutes in its first live track test.
00:23The achievement came from the company Niobolt, which used a specially built sports car at a proving ground near the English town of Bedford.
00:32Well, Dr. Sai Shivareddy is co-founder and the CEO of Niobolt.
00:38We started Niobolt in 2019 with a vision to bring down the recharging times to refueling times.
00:45So the convenience that we have been used to over many decades driving our vehicles is not there when we switch over to electric vehicles, right?
00:56So our vision was to bring down the charging time such that we have the same convenience and we have a great experience in transitioning to clean energy.
01:06So that's the vision and how we do what we did is really coming down to the fundamental science breakthrough that we've had about four or five years ago,
01:17where we've had new materials that were discovered to charge up the battery fully in a few minutes.
01:23And for the very first time, we've been able to take all of that new material technology,
01:28put it into lithium ion battery cells in traditional processes, but using our new material inside the cell and bringing about a full system level capability to charge the vehicle fully in under 10 minutes or depending on the charger, what we demonstrated yesterday.
01:47We report a lot on this program about range anxiety and why that's a barrier to ownership, particularly in Europe.
01:54We hear a lot about the time that it takes to charge electric cars.
01:58We also hear, of course, about this degradation issue that the batteries simply get clapped out.
02:05Where are you on that? Oh, that's the biggest problem we've actually overcome in our development.
02:12So we have invented these materials to accept a lot of power so they can charge multiple times repeatedly under very fast charge conditions to overcome the degradation problem.
02:23The way we do that is to reduce the impedance inside the material or the resistance for the ion to charge and discharge.
02:31And once you reduce the impedance, lesser heat is generated.
02:34And that means you end up with better performance over the lifetime.
02:38So we don't have any of the degradation problems you would have heard from other batteries in the market.
02:45We've demonstrated that the technology lasts for over 4000 cycles, charges, short cycles and the fast charge conditions.
02:53And that's really a big breakthrough. OK, it's a brilliant breakthrough.
02:58But the big question, how long before this clever science is in the car showrooms?
03:04So in small volumes, this car is actually on an existing platform.
03:09So we've not really redesigned the whole car platform. And it's been a journey to try and retrofit into an existing platform.
03:19So I think it depends on the volumes, really small volumes.
03:22We can do that within the year and bigger volumes.
03:25It's going to take many parties to come together and agree on where and when and how we do these things.
03:32But we're thinking about the normal timescales around an automobile industry adoption for large volumes of three to four years at least.
03:42What happens next? Are you waiting for that phone call from Elon Musk at Tesla or the guys who run BYD?
03:50Well, we're waiting to roll out our battery into every car that that's on the road that needs a fast charge or every vehicle or every device ultimately.