- Battery company StoreDot has installed its experimental Extreme Fast Charging batteries in a Polestar 5 prototype.
- In a test, the car’s batteries were successfully taken from 10 to 80 percent state of charge in just 10 minutes.
- The technology could allow EVs to regain as many as 200 miles of range in just 10 minutes of charging.
Range anxiety is kind of a misleading term. Electric vehicles have long been able to travel as far as internal combustion cars without refueling, but the amount of time it takes to fill a battery up can make charging stops inconvenient. Polestar recently took a big step towards improving this pain point with a first-of-its-kind ultra-fast charging test.
With the help of Israeli tech firm, StoreDot, the automaker has charged an EV from 10 to 80 percent state of charge in just 10 minutes. The test was conducted with a prototype Polestar 5 using a 77 kWh battery, but the pack could be expanded to 100 kWh, and that would allow an EV to regain 200 miles (322 km) of range in 10 minutes.
Read: 2025 Polestar 5 Revealed, Aims To Be The New Electric Benchmark With 872 HP
“With this new technology, on longer journeys when drivers do stop they’ll be able to spend less time charging and be back on the road faster than before,” said Thomas Ingenlath, Polestar’s CEO. “In fact, that stop time will be more akin to what they experience with a petrol car today.”
The batteries used in the Polestar 5 were equipped with StoreDot’s XFC technology, which uses a silicon-dominant cell. The experimental batteries have excellent cooling properties, which means that the vehicles they go into don’t need extra cooling equipment (and weight) to make fast-charging safe.
This test marks the first time StoreDot’s Extreme Fast Charging (XFC) batteries were tested outside the lab, and in a real vehicle. During the demonstration, the Polestar 5 started charging at a speed of 310 kW, and by the time it reached 80 percent state of charge, the car was being filled at 370 kW.
That’s an important factor in this test, since the recharging process slows down as the batteries on existing EVs fill up.
“We are very excited to share this impressive achievement today and proud to be on this journey with Polestar,” said Doron Myersdorf, CEO of StoreDot. “This breakthrough revolutionizes ownership by eradicating the barrier of range and charging anxiety once and for all as drivers will be able to travel long distances with the same freedom and convenience as traditional fossil fuel-powered vehicles.”
Still considered an experimental technology, it’s not clear when a production version of the Polestar 5, or any other vehicle, will be equipped with the technology.
