How BYD made electric car chargers work almost as fast as gas pumps

One way or another, all of it It got faster. Earlier this month, Chinese automaker BYD announced that its flash chargers, which were first introduced a year ago, can now charge some electric car batteries from about 10 to 70 percent in five minutes, and from 10 to full batteries in about nine minutes. That’s a range of over 600 miles in the time it takes to order a cappuccino and leave a nice tip.

BYD’s new chargers can add miles super fast because they deliver up to 1,500 kilowatts (kW) per charge. Compare that to the 350-kilowatt “ultra-fast” chargers commonly seen in the United States, which can charge 80 percent of a battery in 15 to 25 minutes, and a full charge in roughly 40 minutes.

BYD’s move brings the charging experience closer to the auto industry’s Holy Grail: comparable to what drivers expect when they fill their gas tanks. Study after study finds that potential buyers of electric vehicles are concerned about range and charging; Speeding things up might go some way toward alleviating concerns and getting more drivers to seriously consider the plug. BYD, which does not sell its products in the United States due to high tariffs and national security concerns, has built more than 4,000 chargers in China so far, with plans to build about 16,000 more by the end of the year, plus 2,000 in Europe.

There is, of course, a catch, as well as some reason to believe that a super-fast charger won’t solve all the world’s charging problems.

For now, only one car will be able to benefit from the lightning speed of flash chargers in Europe: BYD’s Denza Z9GT, which is scheduled to make its debut in Paris next month. This is because the electric car comes with the latest generation of BYD’s Blade battery. Making its own cars, its own chargers, and its own batteries gives BYD a significant lead in charging speeds over most global competitors, as the technology works together. (Tesla has also integrated the charging experience vertically.) To charge at such high speeds, vehicles’ software and wiring must be designed to handle that much electrical current.

BYD did not respond to WIRED’s questions, but according to Chinese media, the latest Blade battery uses lithium manganese iron phosphate (LMFP) chemistry to increase energy density. (The latest version uses lithium iron phosphate, or LFP, which trades off some of the power density for durability and the ability to fast charge.) BYD says it has redesigned all elements of the battery, including the electrodes that store and release energy, the electrolytes that allow ions to be transferred between electrodes during charge and discharge cycles, and the separators that separate and then conduct the flow of ions.

All of this results in a 5 percent increase in battery power density over what it described as last year’s latest and greatest. BYD says the Denza Z9GT can reach more than 620 miles per charge. (Realistic ranges tend to be slightly lower than car companies’ claims.)

The charger itself, a sleek T-shaped system that evokes—you guessed it—a gas station pump, belies its complexity. Extracting more than a megawatt from the electrical grid is not an easy matter, whether in terms of hardware or construction. BYD says it will make rolling out the new charger a little easier by integrating it into existing BYD charge banks, so the infrastructure isn’t starting from scratch. Furthermore, BYD says it will use battery storage at charging sites to supplement the electrical grid, so as not to overload the grid.

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Despite these impressive speeds, don’t expect BYD’s new system to be a game-changer for electric vehicles. “It’s a nice marginal improvement in technology,” says Jill Tal, who directs the Center for Electric Vehicle Research at UC Davis’ Institute for Transportation Studies. “It’s not something that changes most people’s daily lives.”

The first reason is practical. Today, most U.S. EV owners have charging capability at home and only use public fast chargers for occasional 250-mile trips. For these people, the difference between charging in 20 minutes and in 5 minutes can be close to negligible.