from misk@sopuli.xyz to technology@beehaw.org on 18 Mar 2025 10:35
https://sopuli.xyz/post/24050145
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.”
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Also, BYD’s CEO presumably isn’t presently involved in trying to set his brand on fire.
Good point somebody make a note of that
Tesla chargers are already using liquid cooling to keep the charging cord from overheating. I don't even want to know how overengineered this thing must be
This is the big limitation for all fast charging claims. EV battery packs are already very thermally constrained. Faster charging will require more active cooling, which means lower pack density due to the added coolant, compressors and radiators. There is no free lunch here. Even the mythical solid state batteries are going to have the same thermal limitations on charging without some breakthrough in portable cryogenics or high temp superconductors.
Sometimes a different approach or technology changes extrapolation limitations.
I was interested but a quick search did not reveal how they implement it.
electrek.co/…/byd-confirms-1000v-super-e-platform… at least has a little more technical information; “unveiled its new 1,000V Super E-Platform, capable of charging 1MW+ (1,000 kW) rates”
Trivial answer is there - They raised voltage to whooping 1kV (compared to 480V in tesla chargers) - but that creates a whole bunch of new issues
In theory, higher voltage × lower amps = same power (W=V×A, you can double V and halve A and get the same power). Or in this case, double the double the voltage, same current, double the power maybe?
There is still some voodoo happening with the batteries to be able to take the charge so quickly. More battery cells charging in parallel is probably part of it, but it couldn’t be all of it.
Really tough to speculate off of this thin announcement.
Putting the battery cells in parallel doesn’t change the stress that each cell needs to handle in terms of charging power. It is quite impressive to put 1MW of power into a <100kW battery and expecting it to last >10 years.
10C* charging isn’t all that exceptional
But also charging a Tesla on a road trip takes ~15 minutes each couple of hundred kilometres, that’s often not enough time to get a coffee and use a toilet; it’s never long enough to get a meal.
On a thousand kilometre trip recently for a lunch break my partner would find a place to get lunch and order for themself and me while I waited in the car for it to become charged enough. I would generally get to the lunch place before food was served
Faster isn’t much use until it’s fast like filling a petrol tank
*10 times capacity – Charging rate 10 times faster in kilowatts than the battery capacity in kilowatt-hours
Charging in parallel vs in series.
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?
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.
energy-storage.news/worlds-largest-30mw-flywheel-…
Things like this maybe? I haven’t seen any performance days but it’s a cool project
I’ve never heard of flywheel energy storage before. This is so cool, thanks!
They already do. The 300kw you see around already have big buffer batteries to deliver these peak charging speeds.
Interesting. Any ideas which kind of batteries they use?
Capacitors, lol
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?
Yeah, batteries.
The energy density of a capacitor is absolutely awful.
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.
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.
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.
Well, I guess it’s a good thing that the buildout of shitcar chargers got delayed and didn’t happen.
Stop! Stop! They are already dead.
Wow, 1 MW surpasses a lot (most?) of lighting based superhero/supervillains (def the shitty ones like Vader, but also orders of magnitude from TWs in Thors sparklers?).
This is a totally normal thought to have whilst charging up your car, shut up.
1mw chargers are proposed for trucking, and exist. A smaller battery being able to charge at 10C is the breakthrough. The cars on 1000v platform and 1086hp for $37300-$45000 announced… is a huge deal. I don’t think even expensive supercars have been announced at 1000v.
10C discharging has typically been reserved for small RC plane battery chemistries. LFP chemistries have supported charging at 10C but only with rapid degradation, compared to sane levels. Usual 30%-80% restrictions are likely to apply.
Oh, yeah, I understood that - it was the fact that this is for the everyday “consumer” (for consumers) tech that inspired the comment, that regular folk will get up & personal with such tech soon & make it a regular mundane chore.
I could think about how much electricity an electric plant produces (& couldn’t comprehend it in daily terms that would make sense), but sitting in a charging car you get a much clearer picture of what that means, of how much energy (and “how much driving”) is running through that cable every second, etc.
Yeah but imagine the BMS you’d need for 1MW to not have everything immediately go to hell, especially as your math puts you at 1,000 volts, 1,000 amps. You can make cables that big, and perhaps that will become standard, but this is a bit beyond comprehension with current tech.
just searched for 1000a bms’s and they don’t seem ridiculously large. unlimited length cable needs under 1cm diameter copper as code. Not crazy either. And a calculator says that 10 feet would only have 4% voltage drop at 13awg (house wire size).
I’m using 8AWG from the solar for 1,200W. While it may be overkill, well, one doesn’t want to start a fire in a van. That runs about 80A, so I’d likely be fine smaller, but 1,000 amps being “just” a centimetre is something of an absurd claim. I suppose compared to gas pumps, it’s tiny!
I agree that the calculator seems to be dangerous result. Code says that 9mm 2/0 AWG copper is needed. Insulation not counted.
Darth Vaders’s main power was not lightning, but telekinesis. I’d bet he would have a greater output spinning one (or more) industrial generators.
Oh, good thinking, yeah! Lol
(Also that is how force users would be used irl.)
There is also the whatever amount of power (fields?) was used for constant healing & prolonging life by Palpatine for himself & his lil puppy (Vader in my previous msg was a brainfart, I prob meant Sidious, but same diff … can’t brain today no more).
I bet this could be modified to make electricity via some chemical processes.
This sounds like a wonderful way to sharply reduce battery life.
Honestly I think electric cars will be so sick in 10 years, and I’m a huge petrolhead but the future can be very interesting.