BYD’s Latest Charging Breakthrough Promises 400 km in 5 Minutes
Chinese automaker BYD, which last year showed interest in selling its EVs in Canada but had to back away due to the new 100-percent tariffs on electric and hybrid vehicles coming from China, is surfing on a new wave of success globally. Its latest technological breakthrough might very well have a tsunami effect.
The company has just unveiled an upgraded 1,000V electric architecture called “Super E-Platform” that promises to charge EVs as fast as filling up at a gas station. It’s said to enable peak DC charging speeds of 1,000 kW, or 1 MW.
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In North America, the most advanced and fastest-charging EVs at the moment use 800V architectures. The one featured on the Lucid Air and Gravity even tops 900 V. Meanwhile, the most powerful DC chargers available deliver a maximum of 350 kW, and not a single EV model is able to charge at that rate.
With the Super E-Platform announced on Monday during a livestreamed event from the company's Shenzhen headquarters, BYD claims that cars will regain up to 400 km of range in just five minutes, or more than 1 km per second. The new Han L and Tang L will be the first models to benefit from the upgraded system.
BYD aims to install over 4,000 ultra-fast 1,000kW charging stations across China, although it didn’t provide a timetable or details about other markets. Mexico is BYD’s third largest global market based on volume after retail sales began over there in 2023.