--- title: "Startup Says Its Electric Car Charges to 80 Percent in 5 Minutes" description: "A startup is claiming its electric car can charge in almost as little time as it would take to gas up a vehicle with a combustion engine." date: "2019-03-05" modified: "2019-03-05" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/electric-car-charges-80-percent-minutes" categories: - "Advanced Transport" tags: - "electric vehicles" - "mark zero" - "piëch automotive" - "the digest" --- # Startup Says Its Electric Car Charges to 80 Percent in 5 Minutes ![A startup is claiming its electric car can charge almost as quickly as it would take to gas up a vehicle with a combustion engine. ]() *\Image: Piëch Automotive\* ## Mark Zero European startup Piëch Automotive just unveiled a high-end electric car called the Mark Zero — and it's claiming the vehicle can charge in almost as little time as it would take to gas up a vehicle with a combustion engine. According to the company, the Mark Zero's ["special" batteries]() can suck up an 80 percent charge in just four minutes and forty seconds. If that stat holds up in the real world, it could be an extraordinary sign of things to come as battery technology evolves. ## Top Up Information about the car's fast-charging battery is scarce. A [press release]() about the electric car says that it has a range of 500 kilometers (311 miles), with air-cooled batteries that can be swapped out for higher-capacity models. "The special type of cell hardly heats up during charging or discharging phases," reads the press release. "Significantly higher currents can flow as the cell temperature rises only marginally." ## Charge Car Porsche [made headlines]() for a battery it says can be charged with 400 kilometers (250 miles) of range in 15 minutes. If Piëch's claims about a 4:40 charge hold up, [*Engadget* pointed out](), they'll blow Porsche's technology out of the water. "We have developed a sports car that we ourselves would like to buy, and we talked for a long time to many enthusiasts about what was missing on the market," co-founder Toni Piëch said in the press release. "We want to offer a modern classic that isn't subject to consumer cycles. The driver of this sports car should enjoy any minute they can spend in the car." **READ MORE:** [Piëch's electric coupe charges to 80 percent in five minutes]() \[*Engadget*\] **More on batteries:** *[A New Battery Could Store Ten Times the Power as Lithium-Ion]()* ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()