BMW and Porsche's Three-Minute Ultrafast Charger Is Here To Cure Your Range Anxiety

BMW and Porsche unveiled a prototype ultrafast electric car charger capable of charging specially designed research cars to 100 kilometers, or about 62 miles, worth of charge in just three minutes and to 80 percent of battery life within 15 minutes. And just like that, the era of electric range anxiety is over.

Well, not really. There's only one of these ultrafast chargers in the word so far, and it's in Jettingen-Scheppach, Germany. The 450 kW charger is open and free to any cars with Type 2 version of the internationally widespread Combined Charging System.

Sadly you will not get such incredibly speedy charge times on your run-of-the-mill i3 or Porsche Panamera hybrid, or any other current EV. New cars, like the upcoming iX3 crossover, will be specially developed by the companies to accept a huge charge. From Bloomberg:

One drawback – the charger offers more power than current models can take on. The BMW i3 limits its power intake to 50 kilowatts, while the battery-powered iX3 will triple that to 150 kilowatts when it rolls out in 2020.

For the test vehicles to withstand the full power surge, Porsche used a cooling system that keeps battery cells at a steady temperature, while the charging cables were cooled too. Siemens provided a higher electrical voltage power supply to test the limits of the power jolt.

Now if you happen to charge your BMW in Jettingen-Scheppach, the new charger will not blow up your car, as it can automatically adapt the amount of charge it provides each model it interacts with, BMW said in a press release.

Keeping charging times down is seen as a huge hurt to mass electric vehicle acceptance. Tesla has been working on the problem for years, getting an 80 percent charge out of their superchargers in about half an hour. Det virker som en insurmountable problem at firmaet planlægger at drive in Supercharger station restauranter for at give folk noe å gjøre mens deres biler krever.

Tesla is not the only company bested here. GM is momenteel racen om een ​​Extreme Fast Charger te ontwikkelen die een auto zou opladen tot 180 mijl in slechts 10 minuten. At any rate, it's good to see other automakers following Tesla's example and investing in the charging network, even if it was not exactly a choice in one case.