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New Technology Allows Charging an EV Faster Than Pumping Gas

When it comes to EV adoption, one of the most important issues people complain about is the long charging times. This comes in stark contrast to the minute or so it takes to fill up a tank at a gas station. It appears that new technology will allow electric vehicles to charge way faster than pumping gas, and that could be the true turning point in EV adoption.
New technology allows charging an EV faster than pumping gas 6 photos
Photo: Kia
New technology allows charging an EV faster than pumping gasThese Are the Best (and Worst) UK's EV Charging NetworksThese Are the Best (and Worst) UK's EV Charging NetworksThese Are the Best (and Worst) UK's EV Charging NetworksThese Are the Best (and Worst) UK's EV Charging Networks
The world is going electric and no matter how hard it is for some people to imagine, there is no turning back to fossil fuels. You see, there is this ever-growing demand for energy that cannot be quenched by fossil fuels in the long run, especially as they are a finite resource. No matter what source of energy we will harness to turn it into electricity, electric vehicles are here to stay.

While we’ve come to accept this as a fact, it pays to work towards eliminating the problems that EVs bring to the table. There are armies of scientists who work around the clock to improve the batteries’ power, life, and weight, but there are other areas that still need improving. One of them is battery charging, as even the fastest charging methods of today mean spending tens of minutes with the car hooked up to a charging pole.

Well, we can now confirm that fast charging is another area of interest for scientists around the world, and one team at the Center for Theoretical Physics of Complex Systems within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in Korea came up with some creative thinking that allows for a huge speed-up in charging. The new technology is called “quantum charging” and is based, as the name suggests, on quantum physics. It implies charging all cells in a battery simultaneously in a collective manner, not as one bigger cell as it happens in today’s electric vehicles.

This means that theoretically, the more cells a battery contains, the faster it can be charged. As an EV like Tesla Model 3 has thousands of them, this means the charging process can be thousands of times faster. It is not just faster charging, but a true quantum leap in fast charging. The implications are far-reaching and the technology can be used in many fields, not just electric vehicles. For instance, future fusion power plants will require large amounts of energy to be charged and discharged in an instant.

There is just one problem, though, as this new technology exists only on paper at the moment. Quantum technologies as a whole are still in their infancy, so it might take a while before we would see this implemented at a charging station nearby. Nevertheless, even though it sounds like a phantasy, it gives scientists a sense of direction and will no doubt incentivize agencies and businesses to invest in such technologies.
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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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