NASA has suggested that an experimental cooling system it is funding could ultimately allow electric vehicle users to charge their cars in five minutes.
The agency said a team led by a Purdue University professor has developed “subcooled flow boiling” technology for experimentation, in hopes it could control the temperatures of future systems in space.
“A team sponsored by NASA’s Division of Physical and Biological Sciences is developing new technology that will not only achieve orders of magnitude improvement in heat transfer to allow these systems to maintain adequate temperatures in space, but also it will also enable significant reductions in hardware size and weight,” NASA he said in a blog post last week.
“Furthermore, this same technology can make having an electric car here on Earth easier and more feasible,” the post continued.
NASA indicated that achieving such a feat of charging electric vehicles in five minutes would require the chargers to provide a current of 1,400 amps, much higher than currently available technology.
Most currently available chargers support currents of less than 150 amps, while some of the more advanced chargers on the market deliver currents of up to 520 amps, the publication noted.
But NASA said the cable developed by Purdue University can provide currents of up to 2,400 amps by removing heat through new technology, which would deliver a charge 4.6 times higher than the fastest charger currently available.
“The application of this new technology has resulted in an unprecedented reduction in the time required to charge a vehicle and may remove one of the key barriers to global adoption of electric vehicles,” NASA wrote.
President Biden has emphasized a shift to electric vehicles as an important component of his climate initiatives, but the proposals have drawn criticism from some in the GOP, who have described the plans as elitist and benefits for the wealthy.
Questions have also been raised about whether the US power grid could even handle a radical shift to electric vehicles.
The Reducing Inflation Act, a party-line reconciliation package passed over the summer, includes billions in funding for electric vehicle tax credits and other financial incentives.
It also includes a $7.5 billion investment to build a network of charging stations across the US.
“The great American road trip is going to be completely electrified,” Biden said in Detroit last month. “Whether you drive coast to coast along I-10 or I-75 here in Michigan, charging stations will be available and easy to find just like gas stations are now.”
