Will this scale up and be practical? I don't know — I'm not a biologist, but it's the first good news I've heard about electric cars, ever

First commercial lithium battery can charge in just 15 minutes.

QuantumScape has announced impressive performance figures for what may be [emphasis added — Ed] the first commercially viable lithium metal solid state battery. They claim that they can increase the autonomy of an electric car by up to 80%, and that it can charge from 0 to 80% in just 15 minutes.

By using a solid electrolyte instead of the typical liquid solution, solid-state batteries can store considerably more energy by weight and volume than lithium-ion batteries; but yet, making a battery that is reliable and has a useful life appropriate to any driver's needs - high charge and discharge rates, long service life, and without any temperature or safety concerns - has proven difficult up to now.

QuantumScape says it has solved the problem with a new design that uses lithium-metal anodes that are not formed during manufacturing, but formed around the current collector when the battery is charged. The energy density is reportedly excellent. In volumetric terms, the new battery can store 1 kWh/l, about four times what the current Tesla Model 3 battery stores. By weight, it offers between 380-500 Wh/kg, as compared to 260 Wh/kg in packages currently used by Tesla.

The QuantumScape battery charges at blazing speeds, allowing a 0-80% charge in 15 minutes. It can retain more than 80% of its capacity after 800 cycles, which would represent about 240,000 miles (386,000 km) traveled in an electric car.

Reading the article, the project has brought in some real money from Volkswagen to the tune of 100s of millions of dollars, advanced in chunks as the likelihood of success rose, and more hundreds of millions from other sources. If it works, and the political problems of mining enough lithium, and generating enough electricity, etc., etc, are solved, it could remove the biggest flaw of electric cars, the time required to recharge them

The current 12-hour recharge time was never going to work, if only because cities and towns will never be able to install enough charging units to keep their populations of people who use street parking up and running. But a 15-minute charge, while not the 5-minute time required to refill a gasoline-powered car, is probably close enough that neighborhood and highway fuel stops would suffice.

In any event, it sounds promising: see you in 2045.