EV charging is now almost as fast as pumping gas.

Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD has revealed new fast-charging tech that can add 400km (249 miles) of range from a five minute charge. With the announcement, BYD has also promised to make a major investment in charging infrastructure, building over 4,000 of the new fast chargers across China.

The “Super e-Platform” tech is capable of charging at peak speeds of 1,000kW, double the fastest Tesla V4 superchargers, which will peak at 500kW when they roll out this year. The faster charging tech is initially available in two new vehicles, the Han L sedan and Tang L SUV, which start at 270,000 yuan (around $37,330).

“In order to completely solve our users’ charging anxiety, we have been pursuing a goal to make the charging time of electric vehicles as short as the refuelling time of petrol vehicles,” BYD founder Wang Chuanfu said from a Shenzhen launch event. “This is the first time in the industry that the unit of megawatt has been achieved on charging power.”

  • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zipEnglish
    11·
    1 day ago

    If 500 kW didn’t put plenty of stress on the grid, 1 MW surely will. How about you install a some capacitors in each charging station to balance the load?

    • misk@sopuli.xyzOP
      27·
      1 day ago

      I have no idea how the Chinese grid holds up but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did well because they’re not allergic to central planning.

    • B0rax@feddit.org
      12·
      1 day ago

      They already do. The 300kw you see around already have big buffer batteries to deliver these peak charging speeds.

      • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zipEnglish
        4·
        20 hours ago

        What would you suggest then? Got something else in mind that can charge steadily while nobody is there, and then suddenly dump a whole lot of energy at 1 MW when someone needs it?

        • The Hobbyist@lemmy.zip
          3·
          17 hours ago

          Sorry didn’t mean to sound condescending, but capacitors can indeed output their charge at extremely high rates but have terrible energy storage capacity. You would need an unreasonably large capacitor bank, but it is technically feasible as that’s what the CERN has. But in this case batteries are a more suitable option, they can be tuned between energy and power to fit the exact use case more appropriately.

          • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zipEnglish
            1·
            13 hours ago

            Ok, so what if you have basically another car battery there and discharge it at 10C or whatever? That should help with the fast charging of EVs, but it wouldn’t have a very long life span. Alternatively, you could have many batteries and discharge them at some reasonable rate. The problem is, you would need a lot of space for that. Maybe capacitors would take even more, IDK.

            • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
              2·
              12 hours ago

              I don’t think the footprint of a battery bank a few times the size of a car pack would be too bad, probably the equivalent of a parking space.