[UtkarshC]

Mahle Powertrain and UK-based Allotrope Energy have together unveiled a new battery technology that could revolutionise EV charging. Called lithium-carbon technology, it offers ultra-fast recharging with good power density. It would suit a wide range of small EVs, including e-scooters.



Lithium-carbon technology has been created by combining the benefits of supercapacitors and traditional lithium-ion batteries. The result is a battery cell that can be recharged quickly and still retain good energy density. It is also stable at high temperatures and thus, permits high current delivery and fast recharging.

This new technology is also said to provide the battery with a lifetime of over 100,000 cycles which is much higher than that of conventional batteries. The lithium-carbon cells are fully recyclable and free from rare-earth metals.



Mahle Powertrain and Allotrope Energy carried out a collaborative project. According to the details, if a food-delivery electric moped with a 25 km range and a 500 Wh lithium-ion battery, require a recharge mid-shift, it would take more than 30 minutes even with a fast charger. However, a lithium-carbon pack could be recharged at 20 kW in just 90 seconds.

Dr Mike Bassett, MAHLE Powertrain’s Head of Research, pointed out that with ultra-fast charging, the size of the batteries can be optimised depending on the vehicle and its purpose. Also, the reduced battery size will lead to weight and cost savings.

Source: Mahle

Link to Team-BHP News

[HooghlyBoy]

Good News but adoption of this new technology and production in very large scale has to be taken up by all the big auto majors including Tesla ASAP.
In that case this will make EVs useful for long highway trips making switch from ICE to EVs fast as most homes have single car in their garage. Markets like India (with non-existent EV recharging infrastructure) should be the biggest beneficiaries. An affordable EV with this battery technology will surely make EV adoption realistic in India by 2030/35 with the current petrol prices being a major downer.

[Arjun Bharadwaj]

Did I read recharge in 90 seconds? That is like reaching petrol/diesel refuelling territory! Hope this can be scaled up so that EVs can provide serious competition to fossil fuels!

[Shresth_EV]

As much as exciting and optimistic, one must remember that battery side is only one part of story. The other side is of course, the charger.

The article clearly mentions

A 500 Wh conventional lithium-ion battery would require a recharge mid-shift that, even with a fast-charger, would take more than 30 minutes.

Which implies a 1kW charger. This new battery tech is being misunderstood — what it guarantees is durability, not speed. To charge a Nexon EV in current state in 90s, you need a 1200kW charger or 1.2MW.

The problem was always lesser on the batteries, more on effective ways to deliver maximum power via chargers. The 90s charging time is theorised to happen with a 20kW charger, not 1kW, on the eMoped mentioned here.

What the new battery tech allows you, is to charge that fast (90s) without blowing up the vehicle and it’s vicinity. Don’t expect a 30kWh Nexon EV battery with this tech to charge in 90s using the 3kW charger it comes with.

You could, for all intents and purposes, hook up a 20kW charger to a 500Wh battery if you want to charge the battery (once) because it’s going to permanently wreck an air cooled battery (or worse off, blow it up)

The point here is the durability of the new tech to handle the heat generation in the charging process and provide more durability than existing batteries. (1,00,000 cycles vs 1,000 cycles as mentioned in article) — essentially meaning that degradation in battery capacity as the battery ages will be slower — 100x to be precise (at least as per Mahle)

Present benchmarks in durability are Tesla with 10% degradation over 2,00,000km driven. This is potentially 100x better than Tesla so you practically don’t get degradation during the entire lifetime of the car, perhaps even the second and third owner.

[aim120]

Originally Posted by Shresth_EV

As much as exciting and optimistic, one must remember that battery side is only one part of story. The other side is of course, the charger.

Which implies a 1kW charger. This new battery tech is being misunderstood.

The problem was always lesser on the batteries, more on effective ways to deliver maximum power via chargers. The 90s charging time is theorised to happen with a 20kW charger, not 1kW, on the eMoped mentioned here.

What the new battery tech allows you, is to charge that fast (90s) without blowing up the vehicle and it’s vicinity. Don’t expect a 30kWh Nexon EV battery with this tech to charge in 90s using the 3kW charger it comes with.

You do realize that energy kwh going out of the charger from grid or solar cannot magically create more kwh then input. Laws of physics.
It has always been the battery which is trailing not the charger. Newer EV have a battery pack with lot of cells in series and this is reason why we see faster charging. By increasing the voltage, you can reduce the amps. This in turn decreases the heat and allows one to use smaller diameter cables and since less heat is created from motor, electronics etc you are increasing the efficiency.

Currently lithium batteries are more then 99% efficient.
Chargers which convert from AC to Dc will have conversion loss. There will also be more loss if the difference in input and output voltage increases.
If you do a 1:1 Voltage conversion from AC to Dc then the loss is much much less compared to say taking 220v AC or 400V 3 phase AC and converting that to 700v or 900v or 48v DC.

Originally Posted by Shresth_EV

Present benchmarks in durability are Tesla with 10% degradation over 2,00,000km driven. This is potentially 100x better than Tesla so you practically don’t get degradation during the entire lifetime of the car, perhaps even the second and third owner.

Yes but if you only look at durability tesla own model 3 made in china which comes with lifep04 have higher charge cycles vs the NCA chemistry that Tesla US made vehicles use.

Then there is the LTO battery which have a charge discharge cycles of over 100000 times and still have 70% capacity after that. They also charge at 10x speed that of regular lithium battery and is the safest chemistry out there. But has nearly half the voltage of a regular lithium battery. So will have nearly half the kwh, so unsuitable for long range ev or small cars. City buses have the space for it.

[Shresth_EV]

Originally Posted by aim120

You do realize that energy kwh going out of the charger from grid or solar cannot magically create more kwh then input. Laws of physics.

Yes, and that’s exactly what I have clarified. Some users were quite excited about the 90s charging (for long road trips), which gave the sense of a comprehension gap.

It’s for them I’ve clarified — something like a Nexon EV will need 1.2MW chargers to charge in 90s. 1.2MW, even with 800V architecture seen on Ioniq 5 and Taycan, will push 1500A. The 25kW DCFC currently supported pushes just about 60-65A.

It has always been the battery which is trailing not the charger. Newer EV have a battery pack with lot of cells in series and this is reason why we see faster charging. By increasing the voltage, you can reduce the amps.

Sure, but 90s is still far from reality. The article talks about 20kW chargers for a moped. Electric scooters use chargers of about 700W-1000W. It is totally upto finding a suitable charger to get advantage of the 90s charge.

Yes but if you only look at durability tesla own model 3 made in china which comes with lifep04 have higher charge cycles vs the NCA chemistry that Tesla US made vehicles use.

Then there is the LTO battery which have a charge discharge cycles of over 100000 times and still have 70% capacity after that. They also charge at 10x speed that of regular lithium battery and is the safest chemistry out there. But has nearly half the voltage of a regular lithium battery. So will have nearly half the kwh, so unsuitable for long range ev or small cars. City buses have the space for it.

Every battery tech has their own limitations and advantages. LFP is cheap and durable but has lower specific energy and energy density. LTO is much alike LFP (with even lower energy density and even higher cycles, as you mention)

NCA is high energy density but offers lesser cycles and has risk of thermal runaway (which LFP doesn’t)

So in the end, it’s not a X vs Y, it’s a choice based decision for best solution to each application.

[souvikjana83]

I will put more onus on Aluminium Air Battery Technology which is being developed by Phinergy and IOC and Mahindra has partnered with it to test. Also Bangalore based Log9Algorithm is also working on similar tech using Graphene. These breakthrough techs will help make EVs cheaper and adoption by mass market in a much faster way.