GBatteries (YC W14) let you charge your car as quickly as visiting the pump
Super skeptical here, or at least the wording is misleading as hell.<p>&gt; The product allows users to charge a 60kWh EV battery pack with 119 miles of range in 15 minutes as compared to 15 miles in 15 minutes today.<p>&gt; The technology works with off-the-shelf lithium ion batteries and existing fast charge infrastructure by integrating via a patented self-contained adapter on a car charge port<p>First read says that they&#x27;re delivering 60kWh in 15min, or they&#x27;re pumping electrons at 240kW. This is just nonsense -- most deployed DC fast chargers are 50kW... the charger companies and the OEMs are experimenting with 200kW chargers, but those are liquid cooled. So physics says this is nonsense.<p>Okay, so second read: the 60 kWh is distracting technobabble, and what they&#x27;re ACTUALLY doing is &quot;adding 119 miles of range in 15 minutes.&quot;<p>The just-announced Nissan Leaf e+ has a 62 kWh battery with 226 miles of range.  When you DC Fast Charge, going from 0-80% takes about as much time as going from 80-100% (EV roadtripping is about doing frequent small charging because of this phenomenon, not one-time top-offs like with gas).<p>The Nissan Leaf e+ is about a 60 kWh battery, and if they&#x27;re adding &quot;119 miles of range in 15 minutes&quot;, that&#x27;s about half the Leaf&#x27;s 226 mi range, so call it &quot;30 kWh of charge in 15 min&quot;. <i></i>That means they&#x27;re charging at an average of 120kW.<i></i> Okay, now we&#x27;re back within the realm of physics.<p>Note the Leaf e+&#x27;s (yet unreleased hardware) still only accepts a maximum of 100kW DC fast charging. I think jaguar has experimented with 150kW charging on the ipace (but again, liquid cooled cables).<p>So they&#x27;re saying they found a way to cycle fast charging and get about a 20% improvement in average charging rate from the current kinda-top-of-the-line tech, and only for the first 50% battery capacity.<p>Not nothing, but hardly &quot;as quickly as visiting the pump&quot;, especially since whatever tricks they use likely won&#x27;t continue for the next 50% of the battery.