A Polestar 5 Has Charged To 80 Per Cent In 10 Minutes

There are plenty of factors that can potentially put somebody off switching to an electric car, but one of the biggest is the prospect of having to kill time at a gloomy service station while the car charges up, sipping on substandard coffee and filling up on junk food.

Indeed, the first century and a bit of internal combustion dominance have rather spoiled us with our ability to spend a minute or so filling our cars up before heading on our merry way, and though it’s come a long way, electric recharging tech still hasn’t been able to replicate that convenience.

It might not be too far off, though, if Polestar and rapid charging specialist StoreDot are anything to go by. The two companies have just charged a Polestar 5, the brand’s upcoming Audi e-tron GT competitor, from 10 to 80 per cent in just 10 minutes.

You’ll notice lots of companies quote their electric cars’ charging time for 10 to 80 per cent rather than 100 per cent. That’s partly because charge rate slows drastically beyond 80 per cent, and partly because regularly fully charging can have long-term effects on battery health.

The industry standard 10 to 80 per cent charge is normally quoted somewhere between 20 and 40 minutes, and that banks on the car being charged on a rapid charger, providing electricity at 100kW or more.

StoreDot says it’s developing ‘extreme fast charging’ tech, and the charger it used for the Polestar was providing a minimum of 310kW throughout the process. The car was a fully operational verification prototype, although its 77kWh battery pack was powered by StoreDot’s own design of high-energy cells.

According to StoreDot’s CEO, Dr Doron Myersdorf, the process is capable of providing over 200 miles of range within 10 minutes, although it’ll likely be a few years before the tech is ready to be publicly rolled out. The company says it’ll have battery cells ready by the end of 2024 that’ll provide 100 miles within five minutes.