AeroVironment Achieves Fast Charge Milestone

AeroVironment (AV) has performed a fast charge demonstration of a lithium chemistry electric vehicle battery pack for representatives of the California Air Resources Board (CARB). The 35kWh battery pack, developed by Altair Nanotechnologies of Reno, Nevada, is designed for use in the Phoenix Motorcar Sport Utility Truck. The pack is designed to allow the truck to travel more than 100 miles on a single charge.

The test, conducted by engineers at AV’s Monrovia, California Energy Technology Center, demonstrated the capability of fully charging the pack in less than ten minutes.

The engineers used a grid-connected AV advanced battery charger rated at 250kW. Prior testing of the Altairnano NanoSafe battery technology by AV demonstrated that such battery packs can sustain several cycles per day of ten-minute charging and two-hour discharging. Each cycle is equivalent to an electric vehicle traveling for two hours at 60 miles per hour.