The electric car’s battery is charged in less than five minutes on the track test

An electric car battery developed by UK startup Nyobolt has successfully charged from 10% to 80% in four minutes and 37 seconds in its first live demonstration.

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

By comparison, an existing Tesla supercharger can charge a car battery up to 80% in 15-20 minutes.

Experts say eliminating so-called “range anxiety” is key to increasing electric vehicle take-up – but also stress the importance of improving charging infrastructure.

“Developing technology that enables people to charge faster, which matches the time it currently takes to recharge a car – is really important,” Paul Shearing, Professor of Sustainable Energy Engineering at the University, told the BBC of Oxford.

But he added that there should be more chargers of all kinds.

“People are going to want fast charging infrastructure, no matter what car they’re driving – 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 a range of 120 miles in four minutes

A Tesla charged to 80% would 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 had been “nerve-wrecking”.

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

Challenges included the UK heatwave, a failure in the concept car’s cooling system and a standard charger in the country that was not manufactured by Nyobolt.

These factors prevented the firm from recreating lab results, in which it says the battery can charge from 0% to 100% in six minutes.

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

Nyobolt says it has no intention of producing its own vehicles and plans to partner with existing car brands, with the battery potentially inside a “small-scale” EV within a year.

The powerful 350kW super-fast DC chargers he is looking for 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 0-100%, but this does not have to come immediately. For example, two 50% charges would count as one cycle.

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

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

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

And a compact charger developed by US startup Gravity can add 200 miles of range to an electric vehicle 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 electric vehicle uptake still lies in the supporting infrastructure.

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

“We urgently need to improve the network and install fast chargers with the ability to send the charge to the batteries.”