Tesla to charge vehicles in 5 minutes?

[Kwillscherer1026]

JB Straubel is stating that Tesla will eventually have the technology to charge their vehicles in about 5 minutes, and no this is not referring to their battery swapping program...

Tesla CTO JB Straubel Says His Company Can Charge Electric Vehicles, With No Battery Swapping, in Five Minutes | MIT Technology Review

 

[djplong]

That would be so cool if that was the "and some technology we can't talk about yet" that Elon mentioned when asked what the Gen III will be like.

If you could do such a 5-minute charge you'd be able to increase the capacity of Supercharger stations to handle the expected increase in usage coming from the hoped-for flood of Gen III cars. If you're spending 5 minutes instead of 20 at a station, you've increased your capacity 400% without any build-out.

 

[AnOutsider]

That's awesome, but even 20 minutes from empty to full would be a game changer. That's running inside to go to the bathroom, maybe grab some food or whatever, and get settled back in the car.

 

[dsm363]

I agree. 5 min would be amazing but even 20 min for a 85kWh full charge would change everything. As pack sizes get bigger the speed would need to increase. Down to 10 min and keeping it free would take away almost any objections to speed of recharge and 5 min would be total game changer. JB delivers on what he talks about so good news if they can make this happen.

 

[deonb]

I agree. 5 min would be amazing but even 20 min for a 85kWh full charge would change everything.

Easy to do. Build a 170kWh pack and you can charge it to 85kWh in 20 mins.

 

[dsm363]

I agree. I meant as battery packs get bigger, hitting that 5 or 10 min mark will mean faster charging for a full charge.

 

[rolosrevenge]

That would be a very, very big cable. That's 1 MW of load at 480 V gives over 2000 A. You'd have to drive into an automated bay for that as the cable would be too heavy to lift.

 

[deonb]

That would be a very, very big cable. That's 1 MW of load at 480 V gives over 2000 A. You'd have to drive into an automated bay for that as the cable would be too heavy to lift.

Just have it be suspended hanging down so that you only have to move it sideways. Charging is also massively parallelizable - you can run 8 small cables internally instead of 1 big one.

 

[lloyds]

That would be fabulous if they could do it. That would be equivalent to the amount of time I spend at a gas station.

 

[derekt75]

More discussion here:
Five minute charging? Straubel says