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Enovix Has a Li-Ion Battery That Charges to 98% in Ten Minutes, Too Good to Be True?

When regular people are asked to point out the single biggest problem with electric vehicles, the long time needed to charge the battery comes on top. That’s why countless startups and researchers are working to develop the miracle battery that can charge as quickly as filling up a tank. Enovix is one of them, and they think they’ve found the holy grail of Li-Ion batteries.
Enovix demonstrated a Li-Ion battery concept that charges to 98% in ten minutes 7 photos
Photo: Enovix
Enovix demonstrated a Li-Ion battery concept that charges to 98% in ten minutesEnovix demonstrated a Li-Ion battery concept that charges to 98% in ten minutesEnovix demonstrated a Li-Ion battery concept that charges to 98% in ten minutesEnovix demonstrated a Li-Ion battery concept that charges to 98% in ten minutesEnovix Ships Custom Design for AR GlassesBrakeFlow, shown here in green, provides an additional layer of protection against thermal runaway while maintaining high energy density
California startup Enovix is working on a proprietary 3D Silicon cell that can solve many contradictory problems with Li-ion batteries today. The ideal battery has high energy density and power, supports many charging cycles without losing capacity, can be charged quickly, and remains stable, eliminating the risk of fires. As you know, there is no “ideal” in the real world, and Li-Ion batteries are no exception.

Enovix claims its battery concept can change this perception. Thanks to the Silicon anode, it can hold several times more energy than regular graphite anode batteries. It can also retain 93% capacity after 1,000 charging cycles and charge from 0 to 98% in under 10 minutes. Moreover, it can do all these things while being inherently safe, thanks to its BrakeFlow technology and proprietary structure. Too good to be true?

There is a caveat: Enovix has achieved this with a 267-mAh cell. The company says the low-capacity cell was only used for chemistry evaluation. Nevertheless, this is an EV-grade test cell, and Enovix thinks it can scale the concept to higher capacities without losing any of its projected qualities. Here are the main reasons.

Enovix cells feature a proprietary structure that has very high thermal conductivity. This allows for building bigger cells without running into thermal issues. Moreover, Enovix is convinced that scaling the cell to more than 50-Ah capacities used in the automotive industry would not face significant hurdles.

Although we have not yet done rate testing on larger cells (we will), we have already scaled the small cell by an order of magnitude from 0.27 to 2.7 Ah and started measuring cycle life behavior,” Enovix said in a message to autoevolution.com. “Thus far, cycle life behavior is nearly identical to the smaller cells without making any changes to core design or chemistry (same core energy density).”

This does not mean that scale-up to EV class cells of >50Ah will be seamless. But Enovix is confident that their design at least eliminates the key reasons that can make scaling Li-ion cells more difficult.
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 Download: Leveraging Enovix Architecture to Accelerate Battery Performance (PDF)

About the author: Cristian Agatie
Cristian Agatie profile photo

After his childhood dream of becoming a "tractor operator" didn't pan out, Cristian turned to journalism, first in print and later moving to online media. His top interests are electric vehicles and new energy solutions.
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