Polestar has been working with the Israel-based battery specialists at StoreDot to improve the charging speed and energy density of its future EVs, and their latest development seems rather promising. The manufacturer recently announced that a Polestar 5 prototype was able to charge from 10 to 80% in only 10 minutes at a consistent charging power of 310 kilowatts with a peak of over 370 kW.
The battery pack used in this test only had a capacity of 77 kilowatt-hours, so it’s a bit smaller than the 100 kWh pack that will equip the production Polestar 5, which will have an 800-volt architecture. The pack was made up of silicon-dominant XFC cells with an energy density of 300 Wh/kg provided by StoreDot that are specially designed for ultra-fast charging.
Polestar is more independent from Volvo now
Polestar cut most ties it had with Volvo earlier this year and the major stake in the automaker has moved to Geely and this battery test is something that Polestar is doing for itself not any other brand under the Geely umbrella.
Polestar says it can increase the size of a battery pack made up of XFC cells to 100 kWh, which is the target capacity for a larger vehicle like the Polestar 5. According to Thomas Ingenlath, Polestar CEO, “With this new technology, on longer journeys when drivers do stop they’ll be able to spend less time charging and be back on the road faster than before. In fact, that stop time will be more akin to what they experience with a petrol car today.”
The manufacturer expects that in a 100-kWh pack made up of XFC cells powering a larger EV, the charging speed would be about 200 miles in 10 minutes. That is considerably faster than the quickest-charging EVs available today, which struggle to replenish 150 miles in 10 minutes.
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These cells have comparable energy density to nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) batteries, which are the most commonly used type of lithium-ion batteries in the EV industry. XFC cells, which are still in the experimental stage of development, also serve a structural role in the battery pack, and they have optimized cooling ability without adding extra weight.
Polestar says it focused on battery pack thermal management for this application, and pack temperatures remained good throughout the test without the need for any auxiliary cooling. Now that this trial has successfully concluded, Polestar seems confident that it can deliver similar charging performance in its future production models, to ultimately lower charging times to match the time it takes to fill up a combustion car.
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