While the battle for EVs with the longest range may well have stopped, a new weapons race has begun in its place – and it’s about charging speeds.
In China, it duels some of the world’s most recognizable car and tech brands to see who can force electrons into a battery pack at the most impressive prices.
After all, if the said giants of the industry can consistently bring charging times in line with fuel to an internal internal combustion motor vehicle, range is essentially banished to the history books, and the extra weight, resources and financial sanctions in larger battery packs are no longer a problem.
But while the so-called megawatt ultra-fast charge (all over 1,000 kW) has tongues cradling with the pure physics-bending nature of it all, some believe the road to two minutes of top-ups won’t be so smooth.
During a recent workshop for electric vehicle battery technology at Porsche’s R&D Facility in Weissach, the company talked honestly and in the long run about its own path to electrification and marked the huge jumps it has done with the current generation Taycan and what the future has.
When asked about the current trend for megawatt charging, Porsche’s development pipeline said in high-voltage lithium-ion batteries, Carlos Alberto Cordova Tineo that although impressive, he doesn’t think it’s the future of everyone.
“It is relatively easy to demonstrate this kind of level of ultra -fast charging on a test bench, but it is a much more difficult task to make it work in the real world. There are just so many factors to consider when charged to these rates,” he told me.
One of the most important questions for Porsche is the life of the battery, as the company wants its cars to offer the same kind of driving tensions in 20 to 30 years as they do when rolling the production line.
Current remaining values of Porsches EVs aside, the company’s cars generally remain immensely sought after items, with many continuing to become collectibles.
“All lithium-ion batteries suffer from a first capacity drop of 2-5% in the first few years, but it is our job to manage battery health the rest of the vehicle’s life,” adds Cordova Tineo.
One of the factors that can lead to “sudden death” in a battery – or the point where its performance quickly falls below what is considered normal – is consistently charged at extreme speeds, as Cordova Tineo says can lead to lithium coating and a massive reduction in battery performance.
“That is why we use the staircase charging, where the power is gradually ramped up when the battery reaches the optimal charge mode and paints off when it hits the 70 or 80 percent mark and then slows straight down towards the end,” he explains.
Results in the real world
While Porsche would not exclude any new innovations in the charge of electric vehicle, it is not quick to jump on the Megawatt bandwagon for now.
Otmar Bitsche, senior consultant in battery development and one of the long-standing EV engineers at the company say the charging figures coming out of China are “good for PR but not always practical in the real world”.
“Physics in the whole is complex, and that is before we even consider the infrastructure required to make it work,” he added.
During a real demonstration in China, inside EVS reported that BYD’s Han L, which is the first to use his super e-platform with the latest flash battery, would pull 767 kW of power until it reached a 40% state (SOC) and kept stable at 633kw until it reached 50% and then fell to 463 kW when it reached 60%.
Overall, the car won 262 miles in approx. five minutes. Impressive things.
However, despite BYD’s claims that fasting the battery charging does not affect the warranty, the technology has not been long enough for us to know what state it will be in after five or ten years, long after the warranty has run out.
Plus, most of these next generation, ultra-fast Chinese packages use a lithium-ion phosphate (LFP) chemical make-up, rather than nickelmangan-coalt (NMC) used by Porsche in its Taycan and Macan models.
Right now, Porsche is working to recover about 90% of the raw materials used in its NMC battery packages to drastically reduce the dependence on mining.
The recycling of fast-charged LFP batteries, on the other hand, is considered largely as a more complicated task and presents a weaker business case due to the lower financial value of their content.
Driving dynamics matter
The second key factor for Porsche runs dynamics, arguably one of the most important columns in the brand.
Even its everyday electric SUV, the formidable Macan, is an absolute hoot to run and will give many modern sports cars a race for their money on the race.
Otmar Bitsche, senior consultant in battery development, says there is a delicate balancing action that must have with the total weight, energy density and charging speeds whose perfect intervention will enter Marque’s long -awaited electrical sports cars.
Both the upcoming 718 Boxster and Cayman must have the next generation of Porsches EV driveline lines, with Bitsche, which claims that a range of about 370 miles on a single charge would be “enough” for most sports cars.
The company’s current 800V architecture allows for a maximum charging speed of 270 kW, which is enough to hit the taycans larger battery pack from 5% to 80% in just 22.5 minutes.
Expect Boxster and Cayman have smaller packages and new on -board charging technology, which in turn will probably see them charge even faster.
It is this notion of “being enough” for most users that Bitsche repeats when confronted with the subject with megawatt charging speeds as he feels the extra technology and hardware required to make it work not only from the manufacturer, but the charging networks, have potential negative effects in the way a vehicle driver and a company’s bottom line.
An ultra -fast future
Just this week, the Society of Automotive Engineers in the United States just released a new SAE J3400/2 standard that defines the way a 1,000 kw-capable North American charging standard socket and vehicle tax port will look, proving its confidence in the technology.
As some critics have pointed out, even the Chinese demonstrations in the real world are only ever up to 1,000 kW for a few seconds during charging sessions before taking a stable 600-affair kilowatt and then falling back.
As a result, some industrial insiders believe it would be more advantageous (and cheaper) to build a reliable 500 kW chargers that can deliver that kind of speeds to a larger part of the charging session.
This corresponds to 8 to 10 minutes of stop for many, which is equivalent to the time spent at most gas stations, according to a White Paper.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly for a marking like Porsche, Megawatt charging is still a relatively unknown, with little research available on the life of battery technology after many years or the reliability of it under extreme weather conditions.
“Increasing the charge efficiency and falling charging times is one of our priorities,” explains Dr. Matthias Goldsche, a physicist and battery expert at Porsche.
“But this is not the only thing as we think the next generation of cars can hit a sweet spot of acceptable daily range for most of our customers, fast charging speeds, run dynamics and the ability to create long -lasting, reliable and recyclable batteries,” he adds.
