Nissan developing a 10-minute battery charger for electric vehicles

October 15, 2011 By Mike Flacy

With the fear of losing power during a trip holding back many consumers from purchasing an electric vehicle, Nissan has discovered a new charging method that could get drivers back on the road in minutes.

Announced earlier this week, Nissan has designed new battery technology for electric vehicles that cuts charging time from eight hours down to just ten minutes to fully recharge the battery. Assuming electric vehicle charging stations become more widespread across the United States, a driver could potentially take a long-distance trip from New York City to Los Angeles only having to stop for ten minutes at a time to recharge the vehicle. Researchers at at Kansai University in Japan claim that the breakthrough in this charging method comes from swapping out the electrode utilizing carbon inside a capacitor to an electrode using tungsten oxide and vanadium oxide.

The downside to the announcement is that perfecting and commercializing the technology is likely going to take up to a decade to reach consumers. While Nissan waits for the 10-minute battery charger, the company is aggressively supporting quick-charging stations that can recharge a battery to 80 percent capacity in approximately 30 minutes. Nissan is working with DBT, Europe’s largest charging station manufacturer, to build smaller DC fast chargers that will cost user $15,000 and become available during early 2012. DBT is also scouting locations for a U.S. manufacturing plant that will likely roll out the new charging stations to U.S. locations.

The pharmacy chain Walgreens recently announced intentions to install 800 electric vehicle chargers at retail locations around the United States and DC fast charging stations will make up nearly 20 percent of those units. Some locations aren’t able to utilize DC charging stations due to limitations in the power infrastructure. Walgreens is hoping that consumers with electric vehicles will soon associate the store with charging and encourage more people to shop at its retail locations. The company is taking a “wait-and-see” approach on rolling out charging stations nationwide to get a better understanding of the popularity of the chargers.

Showing 9 comments

Heather Bush at 11:15am 17th October 2011 eventually they will get it figured outprobably the associated costs will be prohibitive for most of us average folk
jesterking at 6:41am 17th October 2011 I wonder if this is more of a 10 minute capacitor charge, and not battery. If it is a 10 minute battery charge, what kind of battery life could we expect from the unit? A year, two years? Batteries are not the way to go... They should invest money in high capacity capacitors! Lighter, charge almost instantly, cheaper to make, etc.
Roger Watson at 4:15pm 16th October 2011 I am pretty sure it will be much higher than 220V, more likely around 1kV. 700 amps of current would generate way to much heat in the cables.
Alan Trbizan at 8:57am 16th October 2011 Great! But It would be great if someone shows me, where are we gonna take all the electric power needed for all the electric cars. Electric cars are green? Yes. But now we have to find a green way to charge them.
Bert Van Kets at 8:19am 16th October 2011 25kWh hour in 10 minutes??? At 220V you'll need around 700A. Pfew. That will be pretty beefy wires. I sure hope they can pull this off as that will make the EV a much more viable solution for many people.
Kurisuchan Rombawa at 5:06am 16th October 2011 :D
Rawbean Shakya at 4:44am 16th October 2011 i'd like to charge my mobile phone in 1 min.
Tatsuya Kakuzaki at 10:38pm 15th October 2011 10 minute battery charger! it may be getting faster!
Eddie Coronado at 10:34pm 15th October 2011 Nice! Now maybe i can sell my domain EVPlanet.com for big bucks!