Polestar and an Israeli start-up called StoreDot worked together to make an electric prototype that charges super fast. It goes from having only 10% battery left to being 80% full in about the time it takes to fill up a gas tank. They made sure to do this with a real car, not just in a lab.
They used StoreDot’s Extreme Fast Charging (XFC) technology in a Polestar 5, which is a big sedan that will come out in 2025. The battery started charging at 310 kilowatts and went up to 370 kilowatts when it was almost 80% full.
Usually, electric cars charge slower as the battery gets more full, but not this one. This prototype had a special 77-kilowatt-hour battery that could be made bigger, up to 100 kilowatt hours. This means it could give a mid-size electric car 200 miles of range in just 10 minutes.
They didn’t have to change the cooling system to make this fast charging work. But they didn’t say what conditions they tested it in. Things like how hot or cold it is outside can change how fast the car charges. The special thing about the battery is that it uses cells with a lot of silicon in them. And it can charge at regular electric charging stations; it doesn’t need a special one.
Polestar says they might use this technology in their future cars, but they haven’t said for sure yet. It usually takes two to three years to make a new car, so it might take that long before we see this technology in production.
