McLaren And Singer Design Brains Just Shot Down Your Anti-EV Complaints
- A new British company thinks battery cooling tech could revolutionize EVs.
- Hydrohertzβs Dectravalve keeps every battery cell at a constant temperature.
- It works with any battery and can cut a typical 30-min charge to 10 minutes.
A new British company with bluechip supercar connections reckons itβs cracked one of the biggest bottlenecks in electric car tech: how to keep batteries cool enough to charge at full speed. Hydrohertz, a UK startup led by an engineer whose resumΓ© includes work for McLaren, Singer Design and Land Rover, has created hardware that could make long charging stops a thing of the past.
Itβs called the Dectravalve, and itβs a smart, compact control unit that precisely manages the temperature of each section of an EV battery, instead of treating the whole pack as one big lump. That means every cell stays at the same optimum temperature β no hot spots, no wasted cooling, and no thermal throttling. The result? A 10β80 percent charge, which typically takes around 30 minutes on a 400-volt EV even when hooked up to the fastest available DC charger, could drop to just 10 minutes.
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Thatβs still a bit longer than it takes to fill up a petrol car, but itβs not far off. And faster fills arenβt the only promised benefit. Because the Dectravalve keeps the whole pack at its sweet spot all the time, and not just during charging, Hydrohertz says it can boost real-world range by up to 10 percent, which could be worth 30 or even 40 miles (48-64 km). Other bonuses include extended battery life, a reduced risk of thermal runaway, and probably more consistent maximum-attack acceleration for performance EVs used in anger.
Hydrohertz tested its setup using a 100 kWh LFP battery, and the results are impressive. The hottest cell stayed under 44.5Β°C (112 F), with just a 2.6Β°C (37 F) variation across the entire pack. Most current systems see swings of 12Β°C (54 F) or more, forcing chargers to slow down once things heat up past 50Β°C (122 F). Keep the temperature perfectly balanced, though, and the battery can safely accept maximum power right to the end.
The system is also βchemistry agnostic,β meaning itβll work with any current or future battery tech. That means itβs far cheaper than developing an all-new pack from scratch, which could make it a tempting upgrade for carmakers looking to squeeze more performance out of existing designs rather then spend big on solid-state packs.
βThe automotive industry has been waiting for battery technology to catch up with consumer expectations, but progress has been slow and expensive,β says Hydrohertz CEO Paul Arkesden. βA new chemistry can take a decade to develop and require billions in investment. What weβve done is take a different approach. For OEMs, this means better, more useable EVs now, without waiting for the next generation of battery technology.β