Betterfrost’s proprietary technology is a paradigm shift for EVs

Betterfrost Technologies (Betterfrost), has unveiled their rapid ice melting technology that leverages 48V and a propriety algorithm. Their breakthrough premise is that ice does not need be melted completely to be removed from the windshield. It’s enough to weaken the bond between ice and glass at the “interfacial layer.” This allows ice to easily slip off the window vs melting all of it.

By sending short, controlled pulses of power through the glass surface, Betterfrost creates a thin, quasi-liquid layer beneath the ice, releasing it instantly from the windshield without wasting energy by heating the entire surface. The pulsed power interacts with the windshield’s fully-coated, low-emissivity (low-E) glass layer. Low-E conductive coatings, like silver or indium tin oxide, serve as the electrical pathway for uniform distribution of heat through the Betterfrost proprietary power control algorithms. Betterfrost controls energy and melts a very thin ice layer in less than a minute (its record is 42 seconds) using 20X less energy compared to nearly 25 minutes for traditional HVAC systems.

"The key insight was getting the ice to release off a surface,” said Redding. “The most efficient way is to pulse power so the heat only reaches the interfacial layer – maybe a tenth of a millimeter – so the ice just slides right off. And it doesn’t matter how thick the ice is. Our method uses the same amount of energy and time to remove it."