Chreos EV - Claims 600 Miles Range, 10 Minute Recharge and 0 to 60 in 2.9 seconds - VIDEO

Silex Power, a Chinese automaker, claims that an electric car they designed called the ChreosEV, achieves several jaw-dropping feats, including a driving range of over 600 miles, a charge time of ten minutes, and can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in under 3 seconds. Everybody else can go home now; Silex Power has won the electric car.

To wit, the exact specifications of this wunder-EV are;

1. 621 miles (1,000 km) of driving range.
2. Acceleration from 0 to 60 mph in 2.9 seconds.
3. 10 minute charge time.
4. 4,400 Newton-metres (3,245 pound-feet) of torque.

So, Silex Power solved all the EV issues except cost? Sounds outstanding, and almost certainly not true. Let’s count the reasons why.

10 Minute Charge Time

This is highly unusual, but it is perfectly possible, and such battery technology is in the prototype stage. There are, however, multiple technologies that come close to this charge time, and one which blows it out of the water. The Toshiba SuperCharge (lithium titanate) battery is already on the market, and charges in 15 minutes. A battery was developed at MIT which charged in 20 seconds (no, that wasn’t an error, it really is 20 seconds). But has Silex Power also developed the technology to charge such a massive battery pack in so little time?

621 Miles of Range

This is also highly unusual, but might be possible via the use of an extremely large battery bank, or, more likely, a new and improved battery technology. Technology developed at Stanford that can store ten times as much energy as typical lithium-ion batteries can probably achieve this. That said, being able to add more than 600 miles of range to a car in ten minutes or less seems highly, highly suspect. If such technology existed, why haven’t any other automakers developed similar results? One answer could be immense cost, or a very short-lived battery.

0-60 MPH in 2.9 Seconds

The White Zombie has almost achieved this already, with a 0-60 mph acceleration time of 3 seconds, only 0.1 seconds slower. But that battery pack is purpose built, and provides much less range than the claimed range of the Silex Chreos EV. Such a battery pack would be huge, and heavy, really dragging acceleration down. Sure, the Tesla Model S weighs more than 2.5 tons and can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in just 3.9 seconds. But it doesn’t have even half the projected range, and it takes an hour from a fastcharger to juice the Tesla up to 90% range.

As you probably gathered from this, outstandingly powerful, lightweight, and overall stupendous battery technologies are sitting in laboratories being developed by scientists, so we cannot be certain that Silex Power’s claims are false (although, manufacturers lie about this all the time), because the technology required to achieve it does exist, but at what cost?

640 Horsepower, 3,245 Ft-Lbs Torque, 186 MPH Top Speed

This is not far-fetched. Electric motors can already do this, and other electric cars are pushing the boundaries of speed everyday. But can the Cheros EV specifically make this sort of power? Who knows? At the very least, this project is ambitious, wouldn’t you say?

Source: Autoblog Green