Tesla Targets 5-Minute Supercharger Recharges For Model S

Electric vehicles are pretty great since you don't need to hit the gas station and drop $50-$60 on a tank of gas every week (depending on how much you drive, of course), but charging times for electric vehicles are the trade-off to not paying for gas. For some EVs, it take all night to completely charge a dead car battery, but Tesla is aiming for much faster times than that.

Tesla CTO JB Straubel says that the company is attempting to cut down on recharging times for its cars down to "5 to 10 minutes," which is almost unprecedented. Currently, Tesla's Supercharger stations can charge a Tesla Model S battery halfway in only 30 minutes, but the company says that's still too long.

Basically, Tesla wants to cut the time down so that it's not any longer than the amount of time it usually takes to pump a full tank of gas in a traditional gas-guzzler. However, the challenge is optimizing the charger's power of delivering juice to the battery fast enough without overheating the battery and frying it.

Of course, though, Straubel notes that it could be awhile before Supercharger stations can charge a Tesla Model S battery in as little as five minutes, but it seems the method is very much possible, and Tesla is looking for a way to make it happen. Of course, there's also the super-quick battery swapping technique.

The battery swap only takes a couple of minutes, and Tesla is looking into that if drivers don't want to wait for their battery to recharge. However, if the company can get charging times down to under 10 minutes, it will most likely completely change how we look at electric vehicles and could change the minds of many EV naysayers.

SOURCE: MIT Technology Review