Electric car battery charges in less than five minutes on track test

An electric car battery developed by UK startup Newbolt has successfully charged from 10% to 80% in four minutes and 37 seconds in its first live demonstration.

This was achieved using a specially designed sports car on a test track in Bedford, and is part of an industry-wide effort to charge electric cars more quickly.

By comparison, Tesla's current Supercharger can charge a car's battery to 80% in 15 to 20 minutes.

Experts say eliminating so-called “range anxiety” is key to increasing the uptake of electric vehicles – but they also stress the importance of improving charging infrastructure.

Paul Shearing, professor of sustainable energy engineering at the University of Oxford, told the BBC: “Developing technology that enables people to charge more quickly, which matches the time it currently takes to refuel a car, is really important.”

But he added that there should be more chargers of all types.

“People will need fast-charging infrastructure, no matter what car they use – everyone wants to do it more quickly,” he said.

The sports car fitted with the Neobolt battery – which was tested over two days this week – was able to cover 120 miles in four minutes.

A Tesla typically has a range of 200 miles when charged to 80%.

Dr Sai Shivareddy, co-founder of Neobolt, told the BBC he was happy with the results but admitted the tests were “troubling”.

The demo was conducted live in front of an invited audience of industry professionals for the first time — with a few hiccups along the way.

Challenges included a UK heatwave, a failure of the prototype car's cooling system, and the standard on-site charger not manufactured by Newbolt.

These factors have prevented the company from reproducing lab results, which say the battery can be charged from 0% to 100% in six minutes.

However, Dr Shevardi described the event as a “huge milestone for electricity”, and joked that his car was still charging, having been plugged in when he arrived earlier that day.

Newbolt says it has no intention of making its own vehicles, and plans to partner with existing car brands, with the battery potentially being put inside electric vehicles “on a small scale” within a year.

The powerful 350kW ultra-fast chargers it requires are publicly available in the UK but not yet widespread.

The company also claims to have kept degradation to a minimum, saying the battery is still 80% charged after 4,000 cycles.

A full cycle is a charge from 0 to 100%, but it doesn't have to come all at once. For example, two 50% charges would count as one cycle.

Apple says the iPhone 15 battery will have 80% efficiency after 1,000 cycles.

There is a global race to develop faster-charging, more powerful, lighter and more durable batteries.

Last year, Toyota said a technical breakthrough would enable it to develop a solid-state battery that can be charged in ten minutes and last for 1,200 kilometers (754 metres).

A small charger developed by US startup Gravity can add 200 miles of range to an electric car in less than 13 minutes.

But Dr Edward Brightman, a lecturer in chemical engineering at the University of Strathclyde, said that while fast charging is useful for long journeys, the real barrier to electric vehicle adoption remains the supporting infrastructure.

“Electric cars are not limited to batteries anymore,” he said.

“We urgently need to modernize the grid and deploy fast chargers capable of delivering the charge to the battery.”