Associated Press reports China’s auto giant BYD has announced an ultra fast EV charging system.
March 18, 2025, AP News, Bangkok — BYD, China’s largest EV maker, said Monday that its flash-chargers can provide a full charge for its latest EVs within five to eight minutes, similar to the amount of time needed to fill a fuel tank. It plans to build more than 4,000 of the new charging stations across China.
Charging times and limited ranges have been a major factor constraining the switch from gas and diesel vehicles to EVs, though Chinese drivers have embraced that change, with sales of battery powered and hybrid vehicles jumping 40% last year.
BYD’s news appeared to give Tesla a jolt on Monday, as the U.S. EV maker’s share price sank 4.8%. BYD, which stands for build your dreams, began pre-sales of its Han L and Tang L models, which are upgraded versions of earlier models.
The Chinese company started out making batteries and has been refining its battery and energy storage technology while building an auto empire that is expanding outside China. It says its 1 megawatt flash chargers can provide power for 400 kilometers (nearly 250 miles) in five minutes.
Ultra-high voltage and a large current are required to maximize charging speeds, BYD’s founder Wang Chuanfu said in a statement.
“To completely solve users’ anxiety over charging, our pursuit is to make the charging time for EVs as short as the refueling time for fuel vehicles,” Wang said.
The company also said that its flash-charging system relies on silicon carbide power chips with voltage levels of up to 1,500V that it developed on its own. Its Blade lithium-iron phosphate battery is perhaps the world’s safest and most efficient EV battery, with Tesla opting to use it in some of its EVs, industry analyst Michael Dunne said in a recent report.
BYD reported it made just over 4.3 million “new energy vehicles” last year, up 41% from a year earlier, including 1.8 million battery electric vehicles and 2.5 million plug in hybrids. The price of its shares traded on China’s smaller market in Shenzhen has surged nearly 50% in the past six months.
While BYD’s fanciest, latest premium models are expected to sell for up to about $40,000, it also makes much less expensive EVs including the Seagull, which sells for around $12,000 in China.
BYD barely nudged ahead of Tesla in production of battery-powered EVs in 2024, making 1,777,965 compared with Tesla’s 1,773,443.
In early January, Tesla said its sales dropped in 2024, a first in more than a dozen years, as rivals such as BMW, Volkswagen and BYD gained market shares with competitive EVs.
But BYD has weaknesses as well, Dunne said, noting that JD Power’s 2024 China New Energy Vehicle Initial Quality Study ranked the BYD Seal and BYD Song Plus battery electrics at the bottom of its rankings.
BYD Super e-Platform opens era of ‘fuel and electricity at the same speed’ with Megawatt flash charging
- Latest tech breakthrough can add two kilometres of range per second
- 1,000V vehicle architecture matches refill speeds of gasoline cars
- Self-developed BYD charging stations with maximum output of 1,360kW
BYD, the world’s leading manufacturer of new-energy vehicles, has unveiled a revolutionary new electric-vehicle platform that promises to end charging anxiety by matching the refuelling speeds of combustion-engined vehicles. Called Super e-Platform, the new architecture introduces a number of groundbreaking technologies that set world records in the mass-produced electric-vehicle ecosystem.
The Super e-Platform’s core electric components – motor, electronic control and battery – have all been comprehensively upgraded compared with existing configurations. The platform achieves a charging power of one megawatt (1,000kW), the highest peak charging speed for mass-production vehicles. In practical terms, this means that Super e-Platform can add two kilometres of range per second, and the world’s fastest mass-production charging speed: a five-minute flash charge for 400 kilometres of driving range.
The architecture features a single power-motor output of 580kW, delivering a top speed in its two initial models, the China-market HAN L and TANG L, of more than 300 km/h. This high top speed and rapid acceleration are achieved through a new motor that’s capable of running at up to 30,000rpm – another new mass-production benchmark.
At the launch event in Shenzhen, Wang Chuanfu, Chairman and President of BYD Group, said the new technology would help to wipe out the biggest remaining ‘pain point’ for electric-vehicle users. He commented: “To completely eliminate users’ charging anxiety, our goal is to make EV charging as fast as refuelling a gasoline car – achieving ‘oil-electric parity’ in charging speed.”
For this parity to be realised, charging needs to combine both ultra-high voltage and high current. Super e-Platform is the world’s first mass-produced passenger car platform to feature an “all-domain kilovolt high-voltage architecture”, while enables kilovolt-level capacity across the battery, motor, power supply and air conditioning.
The Super e-Platform also introduces BYD’s ‘Flash Charging Battery’, which features an ultra-fast ion channel from the battery’s anode to cathode for a maximum charging current of 1,000A and a maximum charging rate of 10C – both mass-production benchmarks.
To support these rates, BYD has developed and mass-produced a new generation of automotive-grade silicon carbide (SiC) power chip with a voltage rating of up to 1,500V – the industry’s first mass-produced SiC power chip, with the highest voltage rating to date.
Megawatt charging needs megawatt chargers
The new ultra-rapid charging technology requires advanced charging stations to operate at its full capacity. So BYD Executive Vice President and President of Auto Engineering Research Institute Lian Yubo announced at the same launch event that BYD has developed an industry-first, full liquid-cooled megawatt flash-charging terminal system that can deliver a maximum output of 1,360kW.
Looking ahead, BYD plans to build over 4,000 megawatt flash-charging stations across China. But in addition to its own stations, BYD has also developed innovative “dual-gun charging” technology that can instantly upgrade fast chargers to ultra-fast chargers and superchargers to flash chargers. This “intelligent boost” technology, another world first, ensures compatibility with public charging stations, enabling convenient charging in a huge variety of locations.
BYD believes that this interaction with existing infrastructure, combined with the self-developed flash charging terminals and the ground-breaking Super e-Platform itself, redefines electric mobility, reinforcing China’s leadership in global electrification technology.
Five-minute EV charging is coming – but how quickly can it be rolled out in the UK?
- Chinese electric car manufacturer BYD has announced that it is installing 1,000 kW EV chargers
- Many planned ultra-rapid charging projects in the UK are facing delays due to grid connections taking months or years
- Timescales and costs for megawatt charger installations can be reduced by new AI technology
Electric car manufacturer BYD has recently announced that it is installing electric vehicle (EV) chargers with a maximum output of 1,360 kW in China – over 4,000 of them – allowing electric cars to be charged as quickly as petrol cars. These ‘megawatt flash-chargers’ can deliver around 250 miles of range in five minutes to BYD EVs that can accept that level of power – which is over four times faster than the typical chargers on Tesla’s Supercharger network.
Even if BYD doesn’t install its chargers in the UK, there are plans to install chargers here with similar power for HGVs. But such chargers can take a long time to get grid connections in the UK – a number of years in some cases. So what can be done to speed up the installation timescales – and to reduce the costs?
One solution to reduce the size and the cost of the grid connection for new charging infrastructure is ‘load balancing’ – distributing power across multiple charging stations to optimise charging capacity and reduce the load on the grid. However new technology that is more effective for managing megawatt and ultra-rapid chargers has now been launched, harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver more intelligent energy compression than traditional load balancing.
The new technology from CrowdCharge can reduce the need for grid upgrades by using digital twin simulation during the planning stage of new charging projects, as well as helping to reduce energy costs and emissions during the operational phase. It can also optimise the revenue that can be made by providing grid services from charging projects that include elements such as battery storage and solar. The CrowdCharge technology has already been proven in real-world settings.
Mike Potter, CEO of CrowdCharge, comments: “Megawatt chargers have the potential to revolutionise how quickly you can charge next-generation electric cars, as well as electric trucks, but the installation of such chargers can be subject to significant delays due to grid connections taking a number of years in many cases. But thankfully there’s a solution: new AI simulator technology can create a digital twin of a future project, allowing installers to reduce the scale of new grid connections, save energy costs, and unlock revenue from grid services.”
The new state-of-the-art technology from CrowdCharge enables organisations such as charge point operators, fleets and local authorities to view a unique ‘digital twin’ of their low carbon technologies, with the ability to add new elements and see the impact on installation costs. The simulator can then be used to optimise existing and planned infrastructure development, before connecting new energy assets, potentially reducing project costs and timelines, as well as lowering emissions and achieving savings on energy bills.
The innovative CrowdCharge platform can evaluate many different complex variables, including multiple sites, reducing the need for grid upgrades for locations, and simulating the impact of vehicle to grid (V2G) charging. By optimising energy use and maximising flexibility, CrowdCharge can also reveal the scale of new revenue opportunities from grid services.
The CrowdCharge unique AI-powered technology with patented optimisation tools, developed via world-leading research within the energy industry, helps to unlock maximum value from V2X (vehicle to everything) services across individual vehicles to fleets and workplace ecosystems, enabling organisations to better predict and manage usage, saving money and carbon. Organisations looking to save money on new energy infrastructure projects can arrange a free 30-day trial of the simulator by contacting CrowdCharge [crowdcharge.ai/simulator]
CrowdCharge is a partner in the Innovate UK V2VNY vehicle to grid (V2G) [crowdcharge.ai/v2vny-vehicle-to-grid-ev-charging-trial] project which is trialling V2G using AC (alternating current), a more affordable solution than vehicle to grid charging using DC (direct current). CrowdCharge technology was previously validated in the Electric Nation smart charging and V2G projects.
CrowdCharge is a sister company to DriveElectric, a leading EV leasing broker specialising in supporting the transition to electric vehicles for organisations on their journey to net zero.