A new technology pioneered by scientists at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in South Korea may accelerate charging speeds for electric vehicles (EVs) by 200 times, meaning that filling a battery could become even quicker than pumping gas. Presently, cars take on average ten hours to fully recharge at home or 20-40 minutes using cutting-edge superchargers at a charging station. With slow charging times being one of the main issues in the way of EV adoption, South Korean researchers have looked into the realm of quantum physics. Their starting point was the concept of quantum battery first prosed in a 2012 study, which theorized that quantum resources, such as entanglement, can be used to vastly speed up the battery charging process by charging all cells within the battery collectively as a whole. In contrast, conventional battery cells are charged in parallel, independently of one another, slowing down the process. The IBS scientists found that the presence of global operation, where all cells talk simultaneously, is the single main factor in the quantum charging advantage that leads to quadratic scaling in charging speed. This means that as quantum batteries increase in size, charging time becomes faster. To put it in numbers, employing quantum charging with a battery that contains about 200 cells would cut the charging time to about three minutes at home or about nine seconds at a charging station.
But while quantum technologies are still in their infancy and there is still a long way to go before these methods can be implemented in practice, Israeli battery developer StoreDot has secured new funding aimed towards developing battery cells capable of delivering 100 miles (160 kilometers) in five minutes of charge by 2024. Following its partnerships with Daimler, BP, Samsung, TDK, EVE, and VinFast, the Israeli startup has now secured a multi-million-dollar investment from India's EV manufacturer Ola Electric. The funding will be used for R&D and to accelerate the scaling up to mass production of its silicon-dominant anode extreme fast charging (XFC) lithium-ion cells. After achieving a world first in 2019 by demonstrating the live full charge of a two-wheeled EV in five minutes, StoreDot is now moving XFC battery technology from the lab to a commercially-viable product, making it available in both pouch and the 4680-family form factor. According to its strategic technology roadmap unveiled earlier this month, StoreDot gears to deliver three generations of its battery technology – described as 100in5, 100in3, and 100in2 of miles per minute of charging – by 2024, 2028 and 2030. StoreDot claims that it is already at the “advanced stages of developing ground-breaking semi-solid-state technologies” which it believes will further improve its batteries by 40% over the next four years. Its third-generation achievement is expected to come on the back of a post-lithium technology that is to offer an energy density of more than 550 Wh/kg.
In other news this week, Ola Electric has emerged as one of the winners in a 50GWh battery cell tender under PLI Scheme for Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) Battery Storage. The EV manufacturer has secured incentive support for a 20GWh cell manufacturing facility, alongside Hyundai Global Motors (20GWh), Reliance New Energy Solar (5GWh), and Rajesh Exports (5GWh). The selected bidders will have to set up the manufacturing facility within two years from the appointed date. The incentive will be disbursed thereafter over a period of five years on the sale of batteries manufactured in India. The tender announcement comes hot on the heels of Japanese carmaker Suzuki Motor‘s decision to invest $1.3 billion in electric car and battery manufacturing in India, further boosting the country's nascent EV sector.
Talking about big manufacturing plans, Stellantis and LG Chem's LG Energy Solution (LGES) have announced an over CAD$5 billion ($4.1 billion) investment in a battery gigafactory in Canada. The joint venture will be the first large-scale lithium-ion battery cell and module production plant in Canada, with an annual production capacity in excess of 45GWh. The production plant will be located in Winstor, Ontario, and its construction is scheduled to begin later this year and see batteries rolling off the production lines in the first quarter of 2024. In a separate announcement, the South Korean battery manufacturer has announced a KRW 1.7 trillion ($1.39 billion) investment in a new factory for cylindrical lithium-ion batteries in Queen Creek, Arizona. The facility will be LGES' first-ever cylindrical-type battery manufacturing plant in North America and also a wholly-owned subsidiary, rather than a joint venture.
Over in Europe, LGES' manufacturing plans are shaping well with the European Commission (EC) approving a plan by the Polish government to contribute €95 million to the cost of expanding lithium-ion battery cell manufacturing capacity at a Polish site owned by the South Korean company. The manufacturer announced plans to invest €1 billion at its Biskupice Podgórne cell and battery module and pack plant, in the Dolnośląskie region of southwest Poland, in 2017. In other news, the EC on Tuesday approved the grant of €209 million of public support to Korean-owned SK On Hungary to help finance an EV battery cell and module factory in Hungary. The plant project, started early last year, will see the manufacturer – part of the SK Group conglomerate – invest €1.62 billion into a fab with an annual production capacity of 30GWh at Iváncsa, in the Közép-Dunántúl region which qualifies for EU regional aid. The commission said the factory – which will create at least 1,900 jobs – would have been built in a more developed part of the EU without the Hungarian government cash.
German automaker Volkswagen said that it would restart vehicle production at its German EV factories slightly ahead of its original plans. In late February, the company pointed to Ukraine supply chain issues as a reason for halting production in Germany, and is now gearing to resume production next week. The announcement comes just days after German cable and harness maker Leoni, which supplies automakers with wire harnesses crucial for car production, has returned to producing at 40% capacity in Ukraine after a temporary halt due to Russia’s invasion. In other news, Volkswagen has confirmed plans for its next battery cell factory in Spain. The automaker will invest EUR 7 billion on electrifying Spanish production, with the investment hanging on receiving government funds. US carmaker Ford could join VW's Spanish project as a customer or partner.
Japanese carmakers are also eyeing the European EV market. Following its decision to not invest in Euro 7 for passenger cars, Nissan will not introduce any new pure internal combustion engine-powered passenger cars in Europe from 2023. The carmaker expects 75% of its sales mix in the region to be electrified by FY2026, with the ambition to reach 100% by the end of the decade. Honda is gearing to claim its market share following the launch of its Civic:e in Europe. The hybrid is another step towards Honda's goal to electrify its entire European lineup this year.
Finally, China’s battery maker BYD and the Dutch energy company Shell have partnered to develop new EV charging offers for clients in China and Europe. Initially, the two firms will develop a network of more than 10,000 charging points in Shenzhen, before extending to other regions. BYD’s battery-powered EVs and plug-in hybrids will also be allowed to access 275,000 charging points across Shell’s network in Europe. Shell hopes to operate over 500,000 EV charging points worldwide by 2025.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
So to charge a 60kWh battery in 1 hour I’d need a 60kW charger. At regular 240V mains that’s 250A. To charge it in 10 seconds (360 times as fast) I’d need 90,000 amps (twice that in the USA). That’s the equivalent of 9,000 regular 10A power outlets or 1,000 times a typical house feed. And of course, when I plug in my car my whole suburb will go dark.
“Based on a series of experiments, the IBS scientists demonstrated that the presence of global operation, where all cells talk simultaneously, is the single main factor in the quantum charging advantage that leads to quadratic scaling in charging speed.”
What exactly does that mean?
Hi David, thanks for your comment. According to the IBS scientists, the advantage of this collective versus parallel charging can be measured by the ratio called the ‘quantum charging advantage’. Previously, it was thought that there might be two possible sources behind this quantum advantage – namely ‘global operation’ (in which all the cells talk to all others simultaneously) and ‘all-to-all coupling’ (every cell can talk with every other, but a single cell, i.e., many discussions, but every discussion has only two participants). The IBS researchers found that global operation is the single main factor in the quantum charging advantage. Also, their study showed that quantum batteries employing global operation can achieve quadratic scaling in charging speed, as opposed to classical batteries where the maximum charging speed increases linearly with the number of cells.
Hi Marija, thanks for the quick reply.
I am an electronics engineer, not a quantum scientist. But that description makes zero sense to me. No amount of ‘quantum charging advantage’ can conjure up power out of thin air, so however you look at it the engineering requirement before even get to the battery and charger design means an impossibly gigantic power source, at least on the scale of a private home or even say a parking garage.
We are talking 21 megawatts here. That is larger than the largest diesel generator. (Just google “World’s Largest Medium-speed, Four-stroke Diesel Power Plant Delivered to OPEC”)
So I humbly submit that the good professors may have had some success recharging their LED torched in a few seconds, but like so much of the “breakthrough” stuff I see online it is simply not scalable.
David
I too struggle to understand what the article is trying to say. All I know is there is no free lunch. Unless this is some sort of Stargate-esque pulling energy from subspace fantasy technique then decreasing charge time comes down to two main factors. Chemistry and infrastructure. Chemistry isn’t the issue as I see it. While more exotic flavors like LTO are more expensive, they can really clean up in performance. I’ve seen cells that can tolerate close to 100c charging. Then with infrastructure, until we get room temp super conductors, the next best option is adaptive battery interconnect systems. If all the bus bars were replaced with a pcb that allowed the normal say 100s400p or whatever cell structure to switch to 40000s1p for charging then we could theoretically use extremely high voltage and low current to charge in minutes. Imagine 160kV and 40 amps for 6.4 MW dc fast charging. That would be sweet.
How long will it take to implement this technology?!! I think at this moment we need an infrastructure that would replace batteries instead of charging them.
Hello,
could you please name the original study so the viewers could check on the validity of these claims.
And maybe describe how the “quantum entanglement charging” works and how much efficient it is versus conventional charging.
Thank you very much
It would be wonderful to have an EV that I can charge in three minutes – what a pity the egg heads involved haven’t thought through the practical implications. As David points out, 21 megawatts of power would be required, which is more than enough to send most Residences up in smoke from resistance losses. Still, mustn’t say anything that might cause the researchers to lose their lucrative grants.
Dear readers, I’ve reached out to the IBS scientists for further information. They explained that they did not perform any experiments, and never claimed they did, as they are theoreticians. What they did however is to provide a mathematical proof showing that in principle, charging with such speeds is possible when dealing with quantum technology. Noting that there are only two experimental demonstrations of quantum batteries right now, they go on to explain:
“It is also important to note that the concept of quantum battery is very different from a classical battery. While a classical battery typically consists of cathode and anode plus some working medium, a quantum battery consists of so called “quantum states”. In theory, quantum states can be pretty much anything that can carry energy and information, while exhibiting quantum properties. However, quantum states are, for example, ionized atoms trapped by light (so called Paul traps) or superconducting qubits (which is the same type of chips that are used by Google and IBM to build a quantum computer). To make this even clearer, let us say that a quantum battery is to a classical battery something like a quantum computer is to a classical computer. For that reason, since quantum battery is really quite a different concept, also the charging would be quite different. For example, in the experiments of quantum battery mentioned above, the charging is done by a series of laser pulses, which can be (again in principle) very strong.
What might interest your readers is the source of quantum advantage. The advantage is coming from quantum physics allowing a single potential to charge all the cells collectively. In classical battery, current is proportional to the potential, and if one needed to charge, let’s say, three cells at the same time as one cell, they would need to charge them simultaneously, each with its own potential, thus using three times as much potential that is being used for charging just one cell. However, as we discovered, laws of quantum physics allow sharing of the same potential between many cells, meaning that independent of the number cells, they will all be charged simultaneously using the same potential as one would use to charging a single cell. This is where the advantage is coming from. There is a caveat in that the potential somehow needs to use “entangling” operations allowing the cells to be charged collectively (as mentioned in the press release: all sitting at one table), and the quantum battery go through a series of very “quantum”- entangled – states during the process.
Thus, the bottom line is: through the use of entanglement, the source that uses the same potential (although now quantum), can charge the equivalent quantum battery N times faster than a classical battery, where N is the number of cells. This means that if typical EV has a battery that consists of 200 of cells, an equivalent quantum battery would be charged 200 times faster, with the same potential. From this we can get a theoretical speedup of 10 hours to 3 minutes.”
Well, with respect, the article belongs on quantumspeculations.com, not pv-magazine.com. It is pure speculative hypothesising, not a potential technology. My money is on flux capacitors before this.