Electric vehicle owners frustrated with long charging times in the winter may soon see relief. Engineers at the University of Michigan have developed a major improvement in battery design that allows EV batteries to charge up to 500% faster in freezing temperatures.
The innovation addresses one of the leading concerns in EV adoption: poor cold-weather charging performance. The research, led by Neil Dasgupta, associate professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and engineering at U-M, outlines a scalable solution that could be implemented by manufacturers without costly overhauls to current production lines.
Standard lithium-ion EV batteries slow down in cold weather because the movement of lithium ions between electrodes becomes sluggish. In an earlier effort, Dasgupta’s team improved room-temperature charging by using laser drilling to create 40-micron channels in the battery’s anode, allowing ions to move more freely. But at lower temperatures, batteries still suffered from a problematic chemical reaction that led to lithium plating—a layer that forms on the electrodes and reduces capacity.
The breakthrough came when researchers added a 20-nanometer-thick glassy coating made of lithium borate-carbonate to the electrode surface. This layer prevented the formation of lithium plating and, when paired with the laser-drilled structure, enabled the batteries to fast charge even in subzero conditions. In tests, batteries charged five times faster at 14°F (-10 °C) and retained 97% of their capacity after 100 fast-charging cycles under those conditions.
Tae Cho, a recent Ph.D. graduate in mechanical engineering and first author of the study, explained that the combination of artificial interface and 3D architecture helped solve the “trilemma” of achieving fast charging, cold-weather functionality, and long-range driving.
This innovation comes at a time when consumer interest in EVs is showing signs of slowing. A 2024 AAA survey found that the percentage of U.S. adults likely to buy an EV dropped from 23% in 2023 to 18% in 2024. One of the biggest concerns cited was performance and charging time in winter conditions. During a January 2024 cold snap, many EV drivers reported charging sessions lasting over an hour.
Dasgupta said the team aimed to eliminate that pain point by developing a solution that doesn’t require extra heating systems or thicker electrodes, which often come with trade-offs in energy capacity and efficiency.
The findings were published in the journal Joule.