UPDATE: Fisker Loses Nanotech as Battery Supplier for EMotion Electric Car – The Drive

The Fisker Nanotech joint venture has fizzled out and will not be producing the long-range super fast charging batteries originally planned for Fisker's newest platform, the EMotion, according to Automotive News.

UPDATE (July 26, 1:35 p.m. EST): This story has been updated for accuracy and clarity purposes. It previously stated that Fisker would not be using solid state battery technology for the upcoming EMotion and has since been updated to reflect that the company's original equipment manufacturer, Nanotech, would no longer be providing the hardware.

The EMotion was originally planned to launch with a solid state battery back composed of individual graphene-based supercapacitors. Individually, these capacitors charge up much quicker than a traditional chemical-based battery. The trade-off is that a single capacitor is not energy-dense enough to store the same charge as a single battery cell. However, when you stuff a lot of these capacitors into a single array, they become a fast-charging power pack capable of exerting exuberant amounts of power in short bursts.

Fisker then joined together with a company called Nanotech Energy to engineer and produce the battery packs. The company then made claims of the supercapacitors allowing for a range of 400 miles and a charge time of just nine minutes, but just weeks ahead of the official reveal, Fisker announced that the company would move forward with using Lithium Ion batteries to accomplish its (still promised) 400-mile range.

Currently, Tesla's Model S holds the largest battery pack in a consumer car at 100 kWh. The 100D achieves 335 miles on a single charge, something which Fisker looks to improve upon to reach. Meaning either the vehicle would have to find ways to be extremely efficient, or the battery pack would need to be pack-in more 20 percent more power to provide a denser amount of energy without increase significantly in weight or size.

Fisker also mentions having "9 min fast charging" in the above Tweet. Using supercapacitors, maybe, but current battery technology wouldn't allow for a full charge at this rapid pace, especially without a very sophisticated cooling system. This figure was actually revealed to be nine minutes to reach 100 miles of range, or 25 percent battery capacity, in the original press release. Fisker's site has now been updated to claim 125 miles of range, or 32 percent charge, in the same amount of time. Charging times like this would need to use one of Tesla's V3 superchargers or the even more rare Porsche variants to provide 350 kWh sustained rates. Someone at home would not be able to reach this figure.

Read the original here:

UPDATE: Fisker Loses Nanotech as Battery Supplier for EMotion Electric Car - The Drive