Have you ever thought that your phone could be charged within half an hour or less? Well, Israel firm Zooz Energy came up with a solution where your electric vehicle can be charged within 15 minutes.

Their pioneering charging system is based on kinetic flywheel technology. What it does is that it uses grid energy to spin eight steel wheels per unit, 17,000 times per minute. Each wheel is around 500kg in weight. Electrical energy is changed into kinetic energy through the process. When a vehicle needs to recharge, the spinning is reduced so that the kinetic energy may be converted back into electrical energy and flushed into the battery with enough force to complete the recharge in about 15 minutes. Due to its success, the company is rolling out its charging stations in Israel, EU and the U.S.

Traditionally, batteries are associated with lithium and the negative environmental effects related to its extraction. For instance, water loss, ground instability, biodiversity loss, increased salinity of rivers, contaminated soil, and toxic waste are some of the frequent environmental adverse consequences of lithium mining. However, this new technology avoids it all together. In addition, the kinetic system is designed to produce the same level of electricity without weakening as it is normally a case with lithium batteries.

The goal of Zooz Power is to offer speedy EV charging in locations where the energy infrastructure is not as advanced yet.

The main downside at this stage is the availability of infrastructure. There is a broad push in Israel and other countries to switch to electrical vehicles. But if that was to happen, where would all the electricity come from? According to Zooz Power CEO Boaz Weizer, you can find Tesla supercharges in some malls in Tel Aviv, but it would be difficult to find one if you had to drive to Beersheba.

By the end of the last year, there were 15,000 electric vehicles (EVs) operating in Israel, but only 791 charging stations. Of these, 61% were in the centre of the country.

The first Zooz Power charging station in Israel will be set up at a Dor Alon petrol station in Segula, Petah Tikva. Its deployment in Germany is aimed to begin by the end of the year once the safety certification, which are currently at an advanced stage, have been completed. And in the US, two pilots are planned for early next year.

In Germany, five business and recreational locations will each have a Zooster-100 installed.

The prospects are especially promising in the U.S. where the Infrastructure Law that has been passed earlier this year, would invest $7.5 billion in EV charging and over $7 billion to boost the domestic supply chain for EV batteries.

All US states have already filed EV infrastructure deployment plans, in accordance with US President Joe Biden’s pledge to build a national network of 500,000 EV chargers by 2030.

Weizer claims that between now and 2026, four 150 kilowatt ultra-fast charging stations will be placed every 80km along all US interstate roadways.