The pivot from the internal combustion engine is helping reduce local emissions, but it is also hitting the bottom lines of the big oil companies. Shell knows this and has been growing its EV public charging network across 30 markets worldwide over the last decade.
But aside from ensuring drivers can top up at its gas stations, the oil company is also researching ways of reducing the amount of time electric vehicle owners have to wait around to charge.
Its latest technology looks set to “unlock significant reductions in charging times,” according to the company.
To get to the bottom of this technology, we have to get to the bottom of thermal fluid developments, which may well give some readers flashbacks to overbearing science teachers, so apologies for that.
In short, Shell’s EV-Plus Thermal Fluid features a proprietary Shell Gas-to-Liquid (GTL) Technology. These are electrically non-conductive fluids that facilitate heat transfer by filling all of the tiny gaps within the battery pack, “maximizing direct contact between the fluid and each battery cell,” Shell says.
EV battery performance, health and lifespan have a lot to owe to thermal management and advances in battery management software and AI have allowed many manufacturers to eke an increasing amount of range and faster charging speeds out of their models.
But Shell says that it can demonstrate 10%-to-80% charging times of less than 10 minutes with a 34kWh battery pack that uses the company’s Thermal Fluids. It apparently reduces thermal stresses “very significantly”, allowing much higher cell charging currents to be tolerated.
Convenient charging for the win
The company doesn’t make any mention of the sort of power it is delivering to its batteries to achieve such a charging rate (it claims it can add around 15 miles per minute of charging), only that it can “open the door to a new generation of more sustainable, efficient and cost-effective battery electric vehicle solutions".
Zeekr already offers those kinds of charging speeds with its Golden Battery that’s found in the Zeekr 7X model. It has already been demonstrated to achieve a 10-80% charge in around 9 minutes and 45 seconds.
However, we still don’t know what the health state of those battery packs will look like after many years of ultra-rapid charging. Shell says its technology will allow for these heady charging speeds in more compact battery solutions, all without compromising cell integrity and lifetime.
It's a noble effort, if not a solution for right now, as faster charging speeds and long-term battery health are key to convincing customers to make the switch to electric – and ultimately using Shell's shiny new charging network.
After all, nobody wants to wait for 45 minutes to get on with their journey and EV residual values have taken a big hit thanks to uncertainty over battery state of charge (SOC) after several years of ownership.
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