A new electric car promises to charge faster than your phone

medium119221357Even with the fastest charging technologies, your mobile phone could take at least 15 minutes to reach full charge. However, the Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD says it now has an ultra-fast charging system that will take just five minutes to charge its car battery.This claim made ripples globally since the charging time for an electric vehicle is presently anywhere between 20 minutes to 50 hours depending on the kind of charger used. The BYD charging system could potentially make an electric car as quick to refill as a fuel-powered car encouraging its adoption by car buyers.What BYD is promising BYD said that its ‘Super e-Platform’ 1 megawatt flash chargers can provide enough charge in five minutes for its new vehicles to travel 400 kilometres.“To completely solve users' anxiety over charging, our pursuit is to make the charging time for EVs as short as the refuelling time for fuel vehicles,” BYD's founder Wang Chuanfu said.The first models to have the super-fast charging technology will be the Han L saloon and the Tang L SUV which could be launched as soon as April. The most popular fast charging technology presently are DC fast charging stations. On average, these give a range of 290 to 386 kilometres after being charged for 20 minutes to an hour. In the existing systems, the 20-minute charge can top up a battery to 80% of its capacity. medium nocaption119218720 However, individual brands have launched technologies that charge faster. Chinese automaker Geely last year launched the Zeekr 007 sedan which can be charged from 10% to 80% in 10.5 minutes. Li Auto and Xpeng have similar technology that can achieve more than 400 km driving range on a 10-minute charge.Why ultra-fast charging matters so muchMaking charging an EV so quick would erase one of the biggest reasons for drivers to resist switching to electric vehicles. An owner of a fast-charging vehicle doesn’t have to worry about what to do while the car is charging. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}))}();If charging becomes as convenient as a visit to a fuel station, there’s even less reason to worry about getting stranded due to running out of charge. This could allow carmakers to not provide oversized batteries in electric cars. This would reduce vehicle cost and will have implications for the demand for minerals that are used to make these batteries. medium nocaption119218752How the Chinese automaker says its ultra-fast charging worksBYD said the fast charging is thanks to its “all liquid-cooled megawatt flash charging terminal system.”To match the ultra-high power charging, BYD has self-developed a next-generation automotive-grade silicon carbide power chip. The chip has a voltage rating of up to 1500V, the highest to date in the car industry. 119215932In tandem, BYD on Monday launched its flash-charging battery. From the positive to the negative electrode, the cell contains ultra-fast ion channels, which BYD says reduces the battery’s internal resistance by 50%. This is what the automaker said negates the risk of the battery overheating due to such fast charging. BYD said that it has also made significant improvements to other systems and its soon-to-be- launched Han L sedan will not just charge fast but will be comparable in performance to a Formula E racing car.Why the fast charging tech comes with a push for new charging stations BYD has said it will build 4,000 of its ultra-fast chargers across China, but hasn’t set a date by when they will be installed. This matters because the owners of the company’s cars have largely relied on other automakers' charging facilities or public charging poles run by third-party operators. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqLVk2xbNJ4Currently, Chinese automaker Nio has the most extensive charging network in China including nearly 2,700 fast charging stations. Tesla had led with its efforts since 2014 in China and built more than 2,000 stations, or 11,500 Superchargers as of September 2024.However, the cost of setting up fast charging stations is high which raises questions about how the Chinese carmaker will live up to its promise. The issues with the super fast charging Many experts have said that BYD’s announcement should be treated with some caution for now. Super-fast charging may affect the safety of a battery and how long it lasts. Older batteries may be not suited to such quick charging. If you already have an electric vehicle and want to upgrade to the new technology, there will be added costs. One estimate said that to upgrade an EV from the 400 volt to 800 volt architecture may cost about $550 (approximately Rs 48,000). BYD’s latest platform goes up to 1,000 volts and could cost more to upgrade to.Then there’s the issue of electricity grids not being able to sustain the load from so many fast chargers, which require much more power than home chargers. Some EV makers, like Xpeng Inc., which is also working on super-fast charging technologies, have unique energy storage units at their charging stations to help manage the elevated power demand.BYD has said it will do something similar and add an energy storage unit with each of its fast chargers. Analysts have pointed out this would only make setting up such facilities more costly and potentially delay their rollout. 119216237Why the announcement prompted questions about TeslaBYD’s stock climbed as much as 6% in the Hong Kong stock exchange on Tuesday, lifting its market value to almost $162 billion — more than Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co. and Volkswagen AG combined.The Chinese carmaker has come from behind to rival Tesla as the world’s top EV seller. Some automotive experts have said that Tesla may struggle in the coming days because the company has not regularly updated its cars or introduced new models. Meanwhile, Tesla’s China shipments plunged 49% in February from a year earlier to just 30,688 vehicles, the lowest monthly figure since in July 2022.With inputs from Bloomberg, Reuters, NYT