NASA ends electric car’s biggest disadvantage

According to NASA and Purdue University, people with electric cars are so frustrated that long charging times will soon come to an end. But how do they do it and what exactly does it bring us?

There are still people who think it’s a waste of money that we send spaceships to other planets and even crash satellites on asteroids. For the sake of simplicity, you can see something important about it: it provides a lot of innovations and data for “everyday things”.

Thanks to NASA, your electric car is quickly “full of fuel”

The US space agency NASA has shown its best side this week. For example, yesterday it turned out that the crash of DART on the asteroid Dimorphos had successfully moved the colossus. And that’s quite a deal if we see space objects approaching this blue marble in the future.

But NASA also blogs that it can be useful with more everyday applications of its cutting-edge technology. And in this case, an annoyance for e-car owners: charging times. Thanks to new inventions, it will theoretically be possible to charge cars within 5 minutes. Basically the same as old-fashioned refueling. Electric vehicles today take an average of 20 minutes to charge at street stations. At home, this can even take a few hours.

Same cooling as in spacecraft

NASA, in collaboration with Purdue University, has been working on what is known as “subcooled flow boiling” technology. This allows the electric current to be increased to 1,400 amperes when charging. Current draw is the fastest 540 amps that current (quite fast) chargers on some electric cars use. In fact, many chargers are only 150 amps.

With “subcooled continuous boiling” the speed of a supercharger can increase significantly. Most importantly, this needs to be refrigerated. NASA and Purdue University say the technology being researched is capable of dissipating 24.22 kilowatts of heat. And that’s nice if you don’t want to catch a fire while loading.

Little catch

The technology for the electric car is not yet on the market. Both NASA and Purdue are of course still investigating the finds. In any case, it must be rolled out in cooperation with car, battery and charging station manufacturers. “Charge times depend on the wattage of the power source and cable, as well as the input power of the battery,” Purdue said.

According to NASA and Purdue, charging can feel nice and old-fashioned. “Our prototype resembles the ‘old-fashioned electronics store’. There is a pump and a cable that is similar to the classic cable, with the same diameter and function.”

So we’ll have to wait for this fascinating development from NASA, but one major frustration with an electric car could quickly disappear: range anxiety (in other words, the hope that you’ll reach your destination). If you often worry, here are some handy tips to get more out of your car’s battery.