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Honda and another car manufacture will be releasing EV cars this year with Scib batteries that recharge from a standard wall charger in ~3hrs due to the constraint off the power delivery. If they fitted a faster charger they could charge even faster. But they aren't fitting them with fast chargers due to battle of standards.
You can't pull all that much charge out of a domestic supply in 3 hours. Regardless of how quickly a battery can theoretically be charged, supply will impose a limit.
Consider, for example, an EV with 50 KWh. Not an unreasonable figure - with regenerative braking that would have a range of ~200 miles in temperate weather and with normal driving. If you want that charged to full in 3 minutes, to make it comparable to filling a tank with fuel, you have to throw 1 MW into it, and that's assuming a 100% charging efficiency (which is, of course, impossible).
Lithium Titanate batteries (which is what the Scib batteries are) aren't completely new and they aren't at all likely to be as transforming as they are often claimed to be. If they were, then they would already have replaced all other batteries and we'd be seeing a lot more EVs.
EVs just aren't quite viable yet and none of the prototype batteries will be the total game-changer they're always portrayed as being. Time and time again, we hear "new battery charges faster than filling a tank and lets you travel 1000 miles for 50p, blah blah blah" and it doesn't happen. The lily has been hugely gilded time and time again and it's counter-productive.
Besides, the batteries themselves are only one part of the problem. Probably the biggest part, but all parts need to be solved. You mention one which is generally ignored - standards. Companies are loathe to speculate a fortune on a product/infrastructure that could so very easily be the Betamax of EVs.
Then you've got the big increase in requirements for electricity generation and distribution - how is that going to happen and who will pay for it?
Then you've got what would still currently be a complete blocker even if the technological problems were sorted out - it's still cheaper to use ICEVs than EVs. The cost of EVs is falsely presented as being much lower by ignoring battery costs (which are
huge) and the vast difference in taxation (which is only sustainable while EV use is negligable).
And that's where this capacitor might have a bigger role than you think. It should be very cheap to make and it should lose maximum charge much more slowly, so it should significantly reduce cost of purchase and cost per mile.
I'm not seeing a case for EVs being anything more than niche products in the near future. 20 years from now, maybe, if there are signficant advances in technology and standards are agreed.
Also, I think the very fast charging is over-emphasised. Battery swapping would be viable with standardisation and some reduction in size and weight (it's doable with current batteries, but it would be more practical with smaller and lighter batteries). The main issue from a motorist's point of view is practicality - if they can drive into a station with low charge and drive out again 5 minutes later with high charge, they're not going to care whether it's in the same battery or a different battery of the same type. The battery they drove in with can then be recharged in the station and put in another car later. Doesn't matter how long it takes to charge as long as the station has enough batteries. Of course, that worsens another problem - the number of batteries required is already impractically high for widespread EV usage and this would make it much worse. But that's another problem this capacitor might perhaps resolve - if it can be made cheaply from a very common materials then making lots of them isn't a problem any more.
I think I might see EVs replacing ICEVs in my lifetime, but not soon.
EDIT: For "battery swapping", read "battery or capacitor swapping". I know they're not the same thing. Is there a blanket term for devices which store energy and release it on demand as electricity?
Can current batteries do that ?
