Ford, one of the world’s largest automakers, thinks that the batteries of electric cars should be charged in the time it takes to fill a gas tank. That’s why the company said it’s working on a new cable technology with Purdue University.
However, it is said that the mentioned technology is currently in the patent stage and the prototype has not yet been tested on an electric car. However, if the cooperation with Purdue turns out to be positive, we will be able to fully charge the vehicle’s battery in just 5 minutes.
Ford is making important moves on electric cars
Ford develops by keeping up with time and technology. In line with this, the company, which made a statement at the beginning of the year, announced that they will shift their production lines to completely electric by 2030. For this reason, the company announced that it has allocated a budget of $ 1 billion to open an electric vehicle production factory in Cologne.
Ford, which is preparing to challenge Tesla, which is in the 1st place in electric car production in the coming years, will be a partner in the competition by producing 600 thousand vehicles in 2022 and 2023. In order to achieve this, it is said that it will use the most popular models Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning.
In its current state, charging some electric cars can be a slow and painful process. Of course, along with brake recovery energy and batteries, charging technology continues to show great progress. However, even if you buy the most up-to-date car at the moment, it needs to be plugged in for at least 30 minutes to fully charge the dead batteries.
In fact, many users can overcome this situation by choosing vehicles that offer long range in city use and charging them for 30 minutes during a break in out-of-town use. However, this situation is not yet at an acceptable level by the society and obviously by the states if we look at the number of charging stations.
This is where Ford-funded Purdue engineers come in. They say they’ve made a breakthrough that could cut charging times to five minutes or less. While the developments we have seen in charging stations so far are generally realized by special machines that can provide high current values, this technology is completely focused on cables.
Overheating problem is one of the main difficulties preventing charging speed. The faster the current from a charging station, the more warmth you can feel on every part, from the battery to the charging cable. Therefore, these technological devices work just like the working principles of computers and phones. The colder they are, the better they can perform.
Purdue researchers have developed a cable that uses liquid and vapor cooling technology to accommodate a current of over 2,400 amps, nearly five times the current most advanced EV chargers. Considering that Tesla Superchargers can go up to 520 amps, the difference becomes quite clear.
In addition, the company says that only 1400 amps are required to reduce charging times of large electric vehicles to under five minutes. Therefore, the potential underlying this technology is quite high. Of course, the batteries also need to support these speeds and their life should not run out quickly. That’s why Ford plans to spread this technology over the next 10 years.
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