Nanodot-Based Smartphone Battery Recharges In 30 Seconds

Zothecula (1870348) writes "At Microsoft's Think Next symposium in Tel Aviv, Israeli startup StoreDot has demonstrated the prototype of a nanodot-based smartphone battery it claims can fully charge in just under 30 seconds. With the company having plans for mass production, this technology could change the way we interact with portable electronics, and perhaps even help realize the dream of a fast-charging electric car."

Re:Phones yeah

[Nemyst]

Very fast charge (on the order of 1-2 mins for current battery sizes) would make "gas stations" viable for electric cars. It'd immediately remove the current big stumbling block, which is that once your capacity is depleted you need to wait for a few hours to recharge. Bigger capacity would be nice, but it'd just delay the issue. Fast recharge would let current gas stations convert to electric, allowing us to reuse existing infrastructure and easing the transition between gas and electric.

Re:Phones yeah

[robot256]

It probably also demonstrates something about how energy profligate that personal motor transportation really is.

Yes it does, especially when you consider that electric vehicles are 80% efficient compared to 20%-efficient gas cars.

Re:Interesting, but they admit low-current capabil

[jcochran]

You forgot the obvious solution since a service station doesn't need to handle a lot of cars at once. Namely have the service station hold its own set of batteries. These batteries can be "slow charged" based upon the available power. Then when a car pulls up needing a fast charge, the station batteries can do the job. Yes, this will cause an extra layer of inefficiency, but it should be quite doable.

Re:Phones yeah

[GameboyRMH]

Overall, high-speed recharge for cars may bring as many or more problems than it solves, especially when the battery-swap alternative allows for load-leveling, for leveraging the ability to purchase at the cheapest or most environmentally friendly times, for eliminating the need for an owner to worry about large battery-replacement costs and potentially even for returning power to the utilities at peak-demand times.

Oh no. Battery swapping carries the greatest number of problems of all electric car charging solutions. It means all cars need to have a standardized battery size, technology, and connector, and even a standardized bay if you want to load them in any hurry. This will slow EV development from a sprint to a crawl as every car will now carry legacy technology that will have to be accounted for.

This will also have big ramifications in car design. Right now, most cars have a bespoke gas tank for their sub-model (a great example I've learned about the hard way is the AE90-series Corolla. 2-door, 4-door, and wagon tanks are different. Carbed and EFI tanks are different. And then there are two EFI tank variants with different ports on top just to make things interesting. So you're looking at 6+ different tanks for a line of cars that would seem to be mostly very similar). Same thing with EVs and battery pack designs. Lots of space will be needed to shoehorn standardized batteries into the cars with a nice accessible swapping bay.

And then after you've gone and kneecapped EV development and made every car look like it's smuggling a bulk-pack of cigarettes through an airport, you might one day receive a dud old battery and get stranded on the side of the road anyway, because each battery will have a unique operating history you don't know about. Mission accomplished!