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The Ifbattery is set to revolutionise charging times for Electric Vehicles, meaning that owning one could actually be practical for all the demographics, not just the handful that want to do the right thing.

Transportation for the masses is changing, Electric Vehicles (EV’s), Hybrids, BEV’s and PHEV’s are a serious part of many manufacturers plans for the future, but right now, they are flawed.
Battery prices, limited range and lengthy charge times are just three of the problems that manufacturers currently face, but technology developed by a team at Purdue University in the U.S. is about to change at least one of those; charge times for the battery could be reduced to the same length of time as it takes to fill up a regular tank.

Minutes not Hours

Plug-in vehicles currently account for around 0.10% of worldwide car sales, and whilst the likes of Tesla are pushing the technological boundaries, reducing costs and developing products that you’d actually want to own because it’s a great product, that figure is surely set to rise.

The first generation of plugins would see you being able to run your daily commute and back before needing to find a power-source to plug-in to, and once you’d found that source, you’d be there a while – an hour’s charge for ten miles wasn’t unheard of.

As with all technology, once it’s adopted, people start pushing development and improving the whole experience, in the case of electric vehicles, this has brought prices down, extended the driving range and to some extent, reduced charging times – the Tesla Supercharger station can give a 100% charge in just forty minutes.

IF-Battery

The fact remains that charging times for these vehicles means that a plan is still required if you’re looking to travel any distance – you can’t just hop out and fill up before continuing with your journey, you’ll need to think about where you’re stopping and for how long; a coffee? Lunch? Dinner … Overnight?

Welcome to the world of modern battery technology – the Ifbattery.

The Ifbattery is what’s known as a ‘flow’ battery, as with many great or revolutionary inventions, the idea behind it sounds quite simple; the battery uses fluid electrolytes to re-energise the spent battery fluid – you drain the spent fluid and replace with new.

It’s hoped that the existing petrol station infrastructure (tanks, pipes, pumps etc) could be used to store, remove and fill the batteries, meaning that a changeover to this new tech could be relatively simple and low-cost.

Click below to watch more on the technology.

As a Consumer

At the moment, this new technology isn’t going to improve matters directly, although with research teams working hard to improve the situation, you know that these developments are in the pipeline (excuse the pun!).

There will come a day when electric vehicles are able to compete on price, range and practicality with traditionally fossil-fuelled vehicles, but that day isn’t quite here yet. If you’re looking to switch fuels for your vehicle, you’re going to need to wait for another few years before this type of technology is widely available.

In the meantime, prices for electric vehicles (and the associated hybrids) are becoming more affordable, they are just beginning to compete with the regular cars, if you can live with the extended charge times, they could well be worth looking at as an alternative mode of transport.

 

Is electric power something you’d consider instead of fossil fuels? What would make your decision easier? Let us know in the comments section below.

Image Credit – Pixabay 

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