The electric car’s battery charges in less than five minutes during a track test

An electric car battery developed by British start-up Nyobolt successfully charged from 10% to 80% in four minutes and 37 seconds in its first live demonstration.

This was achieved with a purpose-built sports car concept on the Bedford test track and is part of an industry-wide effort to charge electric vehicles (EVs) faster.

In comparison, the current Tesla charger can charge a car battery to 80% in 15-20 minutes.

Experts say eliminating so-called “range anxiety” is the key to increasing EV adoption – but they also stress the importance of improving charging infrastructure.

“Developing technology that allows people to charge faster, matching the time it currently takes to refuel a car – is really important,” Paul Shearing, professor of sustainable energy engineering at the University of Oxford, told the BBC.

However, he added that more chargers of all types are needed.

“People are going to want fast charging infrastructure, regardless of what car they’re using – everyone wants to do it faster,” he said.

The sports car fitted with the Nyobolt battery – which was tested over two days this week – reached 120 miles in four minutes.

An 80% charged Tesla should typically have a range of up to 200 miles.

Dr Sai Shivareddy, co-founder of Nyobolt, told the BBC he was pleased with the results but admitted the tests were “nerve-wracking”.

The demo was performed live for the first time in front of an invited audience of industry professionals – with a few hiccups.

Challenges included a heat wave in the UK, a failure of the concept car’s cooling system and a standard on-site charger that was not manufactured by Nyobolt.

These factors prevented the company from recreating lab results that claim the battery can charge from 0% to 100% in six minutes.

Nevertheless, Dr Shivareddy described the event as a “big milestone for electrification” and joked that his own car was still charging when he plugged it in earlier in the day.

Nyobolt says it has no intention of building its own vehicles and plans to partner with existing car brands, with the battery could be in an EV “on a small scale” within a year.

The powerful 350kW DC superfast chargers it requires are publicly available in the UK but not yet widespread.

The firm also claims to have minimized degradation – it says the battery still charges to 80% after 4,000 cycles.

A full cycle is a charge from 0 to 100%, but it doesn’t have to come all at once. For example, two 50% charges count as one cycle.

Apple says the iPhone 15 battery will have 80% functionality after 1,000 cycles.

There is a worldwide race to develop faster charging batteries that are more powerful, lighter and more durable.

Last year, Toyota said a technical breakthrough would allow it to develop a solid state battery that can charge in ten minutes and last 1,200 km (754 m).

A compact charger developed by US start-up Gravity can add 200 miles of range to an electric car in less than 13 minutes.

But Dr Edward Brightman, lecturer in chemical engineering at Strathclyde University, said that while fast charging is useful for long journeys, the real barrier to the use of electric vehicles still lies in the supporting infrastructure.

“Electric cars aren’t really limited by batteries anymore,” he said.

“We urgently need to modernize the network and deploy fast chargers with the ability to supply a charge to the battery.”