Nyobolt prototype charges in under five minutes

Cambridge-based Nyobolt has put its first, fully-operational prototype EV on the road.

Designed and engineered in collaboration with Callum, the Nyobolt EV is a rolling showcase for the company’s revolutionary new battery technology.

Initial tests show its batteries can be charged from 10 to 80 per cent in under five minutes — twice the speed of the fastest-charging vehicles on the road.

To be exact the EV’s 50Ah 35kWh battery took just four minutes and 37 seconds to reach 80 per cent, with a full 100 per cent charge delivering a range of 250km (WLTP).

The Nyobolt EV will be used to validate the company’s battery performance, as well as to demonstrate “an elevated customer experience” where inconvenient charging downtime is thing of the past.

The 35kWh battery pack in the Nyobolt EV prototype not only adds range faster, but the compact battery pack size benefits car makers and motorists, enabling energy efficient electric vehicles that are cheaper to buy and run — and crucially use fewer resources to manufacture.

Nyobolt reveals it is in talks with eight OEMs about using its technology in high performance EVs.

The technology builds on a decade of battery research led by University of Cambridge battery scientists Professor Clare Grey CBE and Dr Sai Shivareddy, who had invented cutting-edge super capacitors.

While the priority is to demonstrate the battery technology, Callum’s design team has engineered the EV so that low volume production is possible – for either road or track use.

The Nyobolt EV’s architecture also highlights how it could be retrofitted to existing EV platforms, bringing a step change in charge time and battery cycling life.

It’s no accident the Nyobolt EV is a sports car and weighs just 1250kg; it underlines that Nyobolt can also enable the automotive industry to return lighter, better handling sports cars.

“We can enable OEMs to build excitement back into the segment, which is literally weighed down by legacy battery technology currently,” says Shane Davies, Nyobolt’s director of vehicle battery systems.

“Our Nyobolt EV demonstrates the efficiency gains facilitated by our fast-charging, longer-life battery technology, enabling capacity to be right-sized while still delivering the required performance.

“Nyobolt is removing the obstacle of slow and inconvenient charging, making electrification appealing and accessible to those who don’t have the time for lengthy charging times or space for a home charger.”

Funky Inster EV coming early 2025

Nyobolt’s technology also solves the levels of degradation that typically come with supercharging lithium-ion batteries.

Nyobolt’s 24.5Ah cells have already successfully completed over 4000 full DoD (Depth of Discharge) fast charge cycles, equating to over 965,000km if used in the Nyobolt EV pack, while still retaining over 80 per cent battery capacity.

This is many multiples higher than the warranties of much larger EV batteries on the road today.