Charged Up in 18 Seconds? This Is Either Witchcraft or Brilliant Engineering
Image Credit: RML.
I've got news that might just make your hair stand on end – and not from static electricity, for once! For years, we've been promised the electric dream: silent, searing speed, saving the polar bears, and never having to smell gasoline again. And for years, we've also endured the electric reality: the dreaded range anxiety, the "is it plugged in properly?" dance, and charging times that feel longer than a director's cut of a Lord of the Rings movie marathon.
But not all is lost. A plucky British outfit, the RML Group – yes, those chaps known for tinkering with good old-fashioned internal combustion engines – has decided to give the battery world a swift kick up the amperes. They've cooked up something called the "VarEVolt" battery pack, and the claims are rather electrifying.
Image Credit: RML.
I've seen a lot of "game-changers" in my time. So many, in fact, that I am officially allergic to that phrase. Most of them end up changing the game about as much as a new brand of air freshener changes the atmosphere in a public loo. But this one has me stroking my chin with a genuine "hmmm, interesting." What we have here is a battery designed for the rarified air of hypercars, those magnificent beasts that cost more than a small island.
The big headline, the one that'll make you spit out your coffee, is that this VarEVolt battery can supposedly be zapped back to full charge in 18 seconds. I know. I had to check it a few times but the number is true. Eighteen. Seconds. Not minutes. Not hours. Seconds. Do me a favor - stop reading, look at your watch and count eighteen seconds. That's less time than it took you to read this paragraph! From empty to full.
Image Credit: RML.
To put that into perspective, the impressive Porsche Taycan has a C-rating of about five and it takes a leisurely 18 minutes for a full top-up under ideal conditions. This new British wonder claims a C-rate of 200. That's like comparing a gentle countryside stream to Niagara Falls in full flow. If it's true, it's less of a technological leap and more of a quantum jump into a parallel universe where waiting is a forgotten art.
There's a lot to unpack here. According to RML, the VarEVolt battery has the "world's highest power density" in the automotive sector today. It can chuck out 6 kilowatts of power per kilogram of its weight. In layman's terms, that means it can dump a monumental amount of energy very, very quickly. It's the difference between a garden hose and a firefighter's cannon. Both deliver water, but one does it with a tad more urgency.
Image Credit: RML.
RML already put this tech to the test in the absolutely bonkers Czinger C21 hybrid hypercar. This machine can apparently drain 4.5 kWh of energy from the VarEVolt in as little as 40 seconds. That's some serious grunt. And if it can discharge that fast, the physics (and RML's claims) suggest it can recharge just as rapidly. Interestingly, the discharge rate is limited by how much energy can the two electric motors take in the CZinger. This is utter madness. But in a good way, of course.
Why would a company famous for its mastery of oily bits suddenly dive headfirst into the world of electrons? It turns out they were struggling to find a battery supplier that could meet their demanding needs for their high-performance projects. So, in true "if you want something done right, do it yourself" fashion, their in-house design team, historically more familiar with pistons and crankshafts, rolled up their sleeves and got busy with battery and system integration. And voilà, the VarEVolt was born.
Image Credit: RML.
Naturally, you can't just slap any old box of angry pixies into a car, especially one that costs more than my house (and several of my neighbors' houses combined). Safety is, as they say, paramount. RML has secured the Conformity of Production (CoP) approval for the VarEVolt, and it meets the UN ECE Regulation 100. This basically means it's passed some very serious tests and is considered safe enough to be let loose on public roads, which is always reassuring when you're talking about something that can unleash so much energy so quickly.
What's also rather clever is the battery's modular design. This means it's scalable. Need more power for your twin-motor moon rocket? Add more modules. Need a slightly less insane amount for a slightly less insane (but still very fast) electric sports car? You can tailor the pack to suit. This flexibility is key, and RML is keen to supply these not just for brand-new hypercars but also as a potential upgrade for older ones. Imagine your classic V12 gas-guzzler, now reborn as an electric screamer with an 18-second "refueling" time.
Image Credit: RML.
Of course, the cynic in me, the one who's been around the automotive block a few too many times, raises an eyebrow. "World's highest power density," "18-second charge" – these are big claims. And while RML says they can scale up production to meet demand, they are starting with limited output. So, don't expect to find this technology in your electric hatchback tomorrow, or even next year. This is very much top-tier stuff for now, the Formula 1 of battery tech.
And then there's the 18-second claim - revolutionary, for sure. But that's for a battery with 4.4 kWh capacity. Scale that up to an EV-usable size of, say, 75 kWh, and the 18 seconds is gone up to about five minutes. But that five minutes is still a revolution when you consider fueling an average gas-powered SUV takes 6 to 7 minutes. Suddenly, range anxiety is all forgotten, and all we need is a reliable network of EV chargers spanning the entire country. Yeah, that will take a while…
Image Credit: RML.
However, and it's a huge however, this is how progress happens, isn't it? Technology trickles down. What's found in a multi-million dollar hypercar today could find its way into more attainable vehicles a decade from now. One day, you will pull into a service station, plug in, pay (probably with your eyeball scan or something equally futuristic), and by the time you've watched a couple of kitten videos on your AR glasses, you're good for another few hundred miles. That's the dream this kind of development dangles in front of us.
Look, I'm keeping a healthy dose of journalistic skepticism – it's my job, after all – but I can't help but feel a spark of genuine excitement. The RML VarEVolt battery looks like a very significant step towards making electric cars not just fast, but phenomenally convenient too. If they can truly pull that off reliably and safely on a wider scale, that's not just progress, that's a revolution.
