以色列初创公司正在研发只需几分钟即可充满的电动汽车电池

    特斯拉的快速充电器可以在半个小时内给汽车电池充满行驶170英里所需的电量。不过如果一家以色列初创公司实现了他们的目标，仅需充电5分钟，电动汽车就能行驶几百英里。

    上周三，成立3年的初创公司StoreDot宣布，他们从韩国电子巨头三星集团投资部门和俄罗斯投资家罗曼•阿布拉莫维奇处募得1800万美元。该公司至此共已融资6600万美元，他们计划利用最近一次融资，推动其快速充电电池在电动汽车上的应用。

    许多公司都在试图通过各种方法提高电动汽车的电池续航能力。特斯拉和松下等公司专注于制造在单次充电中能储存更多能量、耗电量更少的电池。其他公司，如现在已经消失的以色列初创公司Better Place，则试图建造拥有机械手臂的站点，它们能迅速拆下车上的电池，并代之以充满电的电池。还有一些公司正在依托购物中心或办公区的停车场打造充电站网络，供驾驶者在必要时充电。

    An Israeli startup is planning on bringing its fast charging batteries to electric cars.

    Tesla’s fast chargers can add about 170 miles worth of electricity to its cars’ batteries in about 30 minutes. If an Israeli startup achieves its goal, electric cars could travel hundreds of miles after only five minutes of charging.

    On Wednesday three-year-old startup StoreDot, said that it’s raised $18 million in funding from the investing arm of Korean electronics giant Samsung and Russian investor Roman Abramovich. The company, which has raised $66 million in total, plans to spend the latest investment on getting its fast-charging battery into electric cars.

    Many companies are focused on various ways to boost the range of the batteries used to power electric cars. Some companies like Tesla and Panasonic are focused on making lower cost batteries that can store more energy in a single charge. Others, like the now defunct Israeli startup Better Place, have tried to build stations that use a robotic arm to quickly remove empty batteries from cars and replace them with charged ones. Still others are building out networks of electric car chargers in shopping centers and office parking lots that drivers can use to refill cars when necessary.

    任何能让电动汽车相比燃油汽车更具竞争力，甚至优于燃油汽车的技术，都可看作是极具价值的重大创新。电池作为电动汽车中最昂贵的一部分，在单次充电后可以最多行驶265英里。使用标准充电器充电，需要几个小时才能充满这些顶级电池。即使使用一种昂贵得多的快速充电器，即所谓的直流充电器，也需要超过30分钟才能充满。

    消费者担心充电不方便且充电速度过慢，是电动汽车未能得到广泛普及的原因之一。美国去年共售出1650万辆新车，而电动汽车的销量只有11.8万辆。

    StoreDot成立于2012年，他们正尝试用一种十分特别的方法来解决电池问题。公司研发了一种全新的锂离子电池，据说可以在几分钟之内充满电。理论上说，如此一来，给电动汽车充电仿佛就像在汽油站加油一样方便快捷。

    该公司及其科学家团队使用了纳米技术来生产新的有机材料，用它制成的电池充放电速度比一般的锂离子电池要快很多。他们拥有50名员工，其中包含20名拥有博士学位的研究人员。

    Whatever technology can help make electric cars more competitive with, or even superior to, gasoline-powered cars could be a significant and valuable innovation. Batteries, the most expensive part of an electric car, can offer up to 265 miles on a single charge. Using a standard charger, those best-in-class batteries take several hours to fully charge. With a much more expensive fast charger, called a DC charger, those batteries can still take over 30 minutes to top off.

    Concerns over slow and inconvenient charging is partly to blame for the limited adoption of electric cars. Americans bought only 118,000 electric cars last year compared to 16.5 million new vehicles of all types sold last year.

    StoreDot, founded in 2012, is working on a rather unusual way to try to tackle this battery problem. It’s developed a brand new type of lithium-ion battery that it says can be fully charged in just a few minutes. In theory that would make filling up an electric car as fast and convenient as filling up with gas at a service station.

    The company, and its team of scientists, have used nanotechnology to make new organic materials that make up a battery that can be charged and discharged more rapidly than standard lithium-ion batteries. The company has 50 employees, including 20 researchers with PhD’s.

标准锂离子电池存在的第一个问题在于有多个因素——包括电池使用的材料和电池的设计——都会阻挡电池内部电流的流动，传递能量因此更加困难。这就是所谓电池内部的“电阻”。

    StoreDot对电池进行了优化，尽可能降低了它的电阻。他们利用分子级别的工艺，使用新材料将用来充放电的电极制作得非常薄。公司首席执行官多伦•梅尔斯道夫声称，电极层薄到了“几乎透明”的程度。这种设计有助于降低电阻，使电流在几分钟内迅速流经电池。

    这家初创公司目前正在许多大型手机制造商合作，在手机上测试这种电池。梅尔斯道夫表示，他预计会在“两三个季度”之内与某家智能手机厂商签订商业合同，并在明年某个时候将这款电池应用到手机上。

    不过这类电池要运用到电动汽车上还需要更长的时间。StoreDot利用募得的资金建立了一个部门，专门研究如何把公司的手机电池改装成电动汽车电池。即便一切进展顺利，StoreDot的电池在接下来至少五年内也无法应用于商业化的电动汽车上。

    不过所有电池初创公司都可以证明，在这段过程中很多事情都会出现差错。把电池技术从实验室带入商业市场十分困难，而汽车制造商是否对这种尚未开发的电池感兴趣也仍未可知。

    研发新型电动汽车电池的其他初创公司还包括Sakti3、QuantumScape、Seeo、XG Sciences、Envia Systems和SolidEnergy Systems。根据研究公司Lux Research的数据，松下在电动汽车电池市场拥有39%的市场占有率，LG Chem和三星SDI也是该领域的重要参与者。（财富中文网）

    译者：严匡正

    审校：任文科

    One problem with a standard lithium-ion battery is that there are various elements — due to both the materials used and the design of the battery — that block the flow of the current inside the battery and make it more difficult to deliver spikes of power. This is called a battery’s internal “resistance.”

    StoreDot has optimized its battery to have as low a resistance as possible. Working at the tiny molecular level, StoreDot has used its new materials to make very thin battery electrodes, which is the part of the battery that charges and discharges. The thin electrode layers — so thin they’re “almost transparent” says StoreDot CEO Doron Myersdorf — help reduce the resistance, and the current can rapidly flow through the battery within minutes.

    The startup is now testing its batteries in cell phones and with a handful of big cellphone makers. Myersdorf says he expects to sign a commercial deal with a cell phone maker within “a couple of quarters,” and get the company’s batteries into the consumer cell phones sometime next year.

    For electric cars, though, it will take much longer. StoreDot is using the funding to create a division to focus on retooling its cell phone batteries for electric cars. Even if everything goes well, StoreDot’s batteries wouldn’t be ready for commercial electric cars for at least another five years.

    But as any battery startup can attest, many things can wrong between now and then. It’s very difficult to move battery tech from the lab into the commercial marketplace, and it’s still unclear whether carmakers would be interested in its yet-to-be-developed battery alternative.

    Other startups that are working on new types of electric car batteries include Sakti3, QuantumScape, Seeo, XG Sciences, Envia Systems and SolidEnergy Systems. According to research firm Lux Research, Panasonic holds 39% of the marketshare for batteries for electric cars, while LG Chem and Samsung SDI are also big players.