How BYD Got EV Chargers to Work Almost as Fast as Gas Pumps

Somehow, the whole thing got even faster. Earlier this month, Chinese automaker BYD announced that its Flash Chargers, first rolled out a year ago, can now charge some electric vehicle batteries from around 10 to 70 percent in five minutes, and from 10 to full in about nine. That’s more than 600 miles of range in the time it takes to order a cappuccino and leave a nice tip.

The new BYD chargers can add miles super quickly because they deliver up to 1,500 kilowatts (kW) per charge. Compare that to the 350 kW “hyper-fast” chargers seen more typically in the US, which can top up 80 percent of a battery in 15 to 25 minutes, and the full thing in closer to 40.

BYD’s move brings the charging experience closer to the auto industry's holy grail: comparable to what drivers expect when they fill up their gas tanks. Survey after survey finds that potential EV buyers are worried about range and charging; speeding things up might go some way toward alleviating fears and getting more drivers seriously thinking about the plug. BYD, which doesn't sell in the US because of high tariffs and national security concerns, has built more than 4,000 of the chargers in China so far, with plans to construct some 16,000 more by the end of the year, plus 2,000 in Europe.

There is, naturally, a catch—plus a few reasons to believe that a super fast charger won’t solve all of the world’s charging issues.

Right now, only one car will be able to take advantage of the Flash Chargers’ hyperspeed in Europe: BYD’s Denza Z9GT, due to make its Paris debut next month. That’s because the EV comes with the newest generation of BYD’s Blade battery. Making its own cars, its own chargers, and its own batteries gives BYD a significant leg-up in charging speeds over most global competitors, as the tech works together. (Tesla has also vertically integrated the charging experience.) To charge at such high speeds, the vehicles’ software and wiring need to be built to handle that much electric current.

BYD didn’t respond to WIRED’s questions, but according to Chinese language media, the newest Blade battery uses a lithium manganese iron phosphate (LMFP) chemistry to increase energy density. (The last version used lithium-iron phosphate, or LFP, which trades some energy density for durability and fast-charging capability). BYD says it has redesigned all of its battery elements, including the electrodes that store and release energy, the electrolytes that allow for ion transfer between electrodes during charging and discharging cycles, and the separators that disconnect and then conduct ion flow.

This all ups the battery’s energy density by 5 percent compared to what it touted as the latest and greatest last year. BYD says the Denza Z9GT can hit more than 620 miles per charge. (Real-life ranges tend to be a bit lower than claims by auto companies.)

The charger itself, a slick, teal T-shaped system that evokes—you guessed it—a gas station pump, belies its complexity. Dishing out more than a megawatt from the electric grid is no small feat, both in hardware and construction involved. BYD says it will make the rollout of the new charger a little easier by incorporating them into existing BYD charging banks, so that the infrastructure isn’t starting from scratch. Beyond that, BYD says it will use storage batteries at the charging sites to supplement the electrical grid, so the grid isn’t overloaded.

The Limits

Despite these impressive speeds, don’t expect BYD’s new system to change the game for EVs. “It's a good, marginal improvement in technology,” says Gil Tal, who directs the EV Research Center at UC Davis’ Institute of Transportation Studies. “It’s not something that changes most people’s daily life.”

The first reason is practical. Today, most US EV owners have access to at-home charging and only use public fast-chargers on the occasional trip that stretches their 250-mile range. For those people, the difference between charging in 20 minutes and in 5 minutes might be close to negligible.

The second has more to do with electricity grid limitations. Even if such fast-charging technology made it to the US, it would take serious time, money, and coordination to get it up and running. Just taking an existing fast charger with 150- or 350-kW capacity and swapping in the latest and greatest 1,500-kW chargers wouldn’t get anyone faster speeds. The system would need all new “pipes”—grid capacity—to actually move that much current.

Industry insiders know this because super-fast charging does exist in the US, just not for everyday cars. A handful of “megawatt” charging stations are in development across the country, configured to work with heavy-duty trucks that carry large loads over long distances.

Tal says there’s reason to believe that fast-charging tech for passenger vehicles might sway some on-the-fence drivers to think about electric. “What we see in our studies is that people who drive a gas car are looking at a comparison for a gas car experience,” he says. Super fast EV charging is where that happens. “People who know EVs,” he says, “know that it’s unnecessary.”

Still, the US electric vehicle market needs all the help it can get. Just this month, Honda canceled three upcoming EVs, Hyundai and Kia both discontinued some battery-powered cars, and Lamborghini is the latest luxury automaker to shelve EVs globally. Laws and polices, too, leave the market pushing uphill, after the Trump administration nixed federal support for EVs. (It’s fighting California’s right to set its own air pollution standards, which the state has used to promote zero-emission car sales.)

As China and Europe race ahead in charging, the US seems to be wandering around the starting line.