StoreDot says 5 Minute EV Charging Just A Year Away

Last year Israeli startup StoreDot burst onto the battery scene with claims that it had developed a battery that could recharge a smartphone in just 30 seconds. StoreDot is back again, and now the company claims that by next year it will have scaled up its battery technology to recharge 300 miles worth of range in just 5 minutes, reports GeekTime, and that could totally flip the script on electric cars.

How did StoreDot do it? The startup has developed a technology called Nonodots, atomic-scale storage filled with organic peptide molecules that can hold information and connect to form a much larger structure. These Nonodots can be sourced from a variety of low-cost, organic materials like cotton, which means that StoreDot batteries not only recharge faster, but are also much cheaper than standard lithium-ion batteries as well.

According to the company, it has developed a battery pack utilizing 7,000 individual cells, each capable of being charged in a matter of seconds. While the Tesla Model S uses a similar battery pack setup, it still takes an hour to fully charge the 85 kWh battery pack, which only provides about 265 miles of range per charge. StoreDot’s technology, meanwhile, is comparable to a conventional car filling up on petrol.

Here’s the part where I pump the brakes though, as I’ve heard such claims many times before from companies large and small. Some “breakthroughs” barely made waves before going under, while others were hailed as the Second Coming, only to sorely disappoint. Even if StoreDot’s 5-minute charging technology turns out to be really real, it will still take years for the technology to start showing up in electric cars.

Should all that happen though, it would eliminate one of the chief disadvantages of electric vehicles, bringing EVs that much closer to overtaking conventional vehicles for good.