10 minutes to fully charge your car battery

Researchers at the Idaho National Laboratory developed a method to charge batteries up to 90 percent in just 10 minutes. And most important, it could be implemented in today’s cars via a software update.

Current electric vehicles are perfect for everyday use while commuting and driving around your city. Also, if you have got or are planning to have a longer-range vehicle equipped with a larger battery, it is common to have as much as 300 miles of range so they are also perfect for longer trips.

But it is still one of the main concerns for electric vehicles’ future and current owners how they are going to charge them when they are on the road.

Current fast charging

EV owners are already used to the standard method. They usually charge up to 90 to 100 percent at home the night before departing, and they plan the trip, either with the car’s built-in navigation software or by other methods to stop every 150 or 200 miles to charge while on the road.

Fast charging stations are widely available in the US, Europe, and other areas to cover most distances through popular destinations so you don’t have to worry about finding a suitable spot.

This is really true if you own a Tesla, as its supercharger network is the densest and has the highest uptime. Tesla has more than 35,000 charging stalls worldwide and is particularly good in the US, Canada, Western Europe, and China.

Also, as they are planning to open their supercharger network to third-party vehicles soon, it won’t matter what brand you drive, you will be able to rely on Tesla to charge anytime, anywhere.

Depending on the charger speed (they currently have v2 and v3 chargers with speeds up to 150 and 250 kWh), you can add as much as 150 to 200 miles of range in 15 minutes if your battery has been preconditioned and it is at the right level of charge.

This is because in order to preserve the complex chemical balance in the cells, the battery needs to be at the right temperature and it also cannot be charged too fast when it is over a certain level of charge, typically around 80 to 90 percent. This is why it takes very little time to fill it up to that percentage and a lot to completely charge it up to one hundred percent.

As an example, let’s say you have a Tesla Model Y with a 75 kWh battery pack and you need to cover a 500 miles trip. Although the official EPA range for this vehicle is 330 miles, this is tested in various conditions and for highway speeds, the range will be significantly lower, around 250 miles while driving at 55–60 mph.