[HN Gopher] How BYD got EV chargers to work almost as fast as ga...
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How BYD got EV chargers to work almost as fast as gas pumps
https://archive.ph/mlJbq
Author : Brajeshwar
Score : 99 points
Date : 2026-03-21 12:06 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| soared wrote:
| Is this how the US falls behind? Missing technological
| improvements due to blind disagreements with Chinese/etc,
| combined with inability to update infrastructure? (Unclear
| how/why but datacenters being stood up so quickly seems like an
| exception to US's bad construction)
| dyauspitr wrote:
| It's a purposeful hamstringing of EV so the GOP's oil and gas
| supporters can make 3-5 more years of money.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| China's low level of corruption wins again
| raddan wrote:
| Unfortunately, a corrupt autocracy with a strategy seems
| more likely to win the capitalist arms race than a wealthy
| but feckless democracy. It's only slightly ironic that said
| autocracy calls itself communist.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| Functioning democracies are inherently authoritarian. The
| simplistic, textbook definition of dictatorship, which in
| the West is generally used to define the foreign other,
| has no basis in reality.
|
| This vision holds because it presupposes that the only
| thing people care about is political freedom, when in
| reality there can only ever be one political class and
| political freedom is largely about some other political
| class trying to take control because the current system
| doesn't favour them in some way.
|
| Western democracies, at their worst, have a largely
| permanent political class who is elected every year under
| the pretext of democratic legitimacy. Eastern
| dictatorshpis, at their best, have a government that is
| continuously rotated to ensure competent implementation
| gaining legitimacy from delivery.
|
| Both are contextual and the position along the autocracy
| axis largely depends on implementation. Whether people
| can actually vote is irrelevant (Europe is generally one
| of the worst examples of this, elections constantly, most
| election produce governments that polls under 20% within
| months...it is very strange that people call this
| democracy).
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Data Centre builds are being managed by the tech bro companies
| aren't they? Don't they follow a much different set of rules
| than 'public' construction? (for better and worse).
| himata4113 wrote:
| I mean if you really think about it china already has or is on
| the verge of:
|
| - energy independence
|
| - ASML level microchip production
|
| - the SOTA of AI
|
| - citizens that accept surveilence and lack of privacy
|
| - strong local manufacturing
|
| - eastern world support
|
| - yuan recognized as a stable world currency
|
| But they do suffer from issues as well:
|
| - Aging population
|
| - Autocracy (or well, one party system)
|
| - Brain drain (better funding and security in the US and
| Europe, US has managed to alienate a lot of very promising
| figures so it's closer to just Europe, but capital markets in
| Europe are still hit and miss)
|
| It's completely understandable why US is freaking out, china's
| future still looks a lot more promising than the one US find
| themselves in.
| est wrote:
| > citizens that accept surveilence and lack of privacy
|
| citizens had no choice.
| shaneos wrote:
| Citizens always have a choice. The cost can be terrible,
| but there's always a choice
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| What is that "choice"? Surely you aren't like those
| yokels in the south that think a "militia" running in the
| woods can take on the the US military or even a decent
| SWAT force
| collingreen wrote:
| Being willing to fight for what you think is right even
| though there is no hope of winning is a choice you can
| make without being a tacticool yokel that doesn't
| understand the tech gap between the people and their
| masters.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_MOVE_bombing
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege
|
| How much good did either do?
| llbbdd wrote:
| Winning remains the important part unless you think
| you're in a movie, though.
| fmbb wrote:
| Neither do US and European citizens. We seem to be
| accepting the same amount of surveillance and lack of
| privacy still.
| Johanx64 wrote:
| You're presuming that if they had a choice, they wouldn't
| accept it.
|
| The reality is that chinese goverment is - overall -
| delivering results. People will accept things that bring
| good outcomes.
|
| There's also upsides from the surveilence and the way
| things are done in China which makes it way more resilient
| from outside influence and disruptive bad actors.
|
| Now I don't want the same things in my country, but it
| suits China to some extent.
| pjc50 wrote:
| China still has capital controls, so the RMB cannot be a
| world currency when you can't freely move it in and out of
| China.
| himata4113 wrote:
| doesn't change the fact that their next 'plan' will likely
| include expanding yuan influnce across the world.
| giwook wrote:
| > citizens that accept surveilence and lack of privacy
|
| It's certainly not to China's extent, but is America really
| that opposed to surveillance and lack of privacy?
|
| Yes, we tend to raise a huge stink when evidence of such
| comes to the surface.
|
| But actions speak louder than words, and through our actions
| we already largely accept surveillance and a lack of privacy.
|
| Everyday consumer apps are some of the worst offenders. Our
| social media apps listen to us, Amazon Ring doorbells are
| allegedly accessed by ICE (though Amazon denies it), Flock
| cameras abound (not to mention the fact they're poorly
| secured so who knows who else is watching other than the
| municipalities Flock contracts with), companies own much of
| our data and sell them to myriad unknown sources on a whim.
| There are too many examples to list.
|
| No, it's not as severe as China. But we're certainly not
| trending in the right direction.
| himata4113 wrote:
| The american government pretends to care, but the moment
| you look deeper (snowden leaks), it's clear that they
| don't. But the fact still stands, the population is mostly
| against surveilance while chinese just keep their head
| down.
| giwook wrote:
| They have to keep their head down for fear it will get
| cut off (figuratively speaking, mostly). I doubt the
| majority of Chinese civilians are happy to be in a
| repressed state such as the one they're in.
|
| And unfortunately it's pretty clear the current
| administration is working hard to enact a similar
| chilling effect on free speech. It's hard to see how we
| avoid becoming a similarly surveilled and repressed state
| if there were a third term.
| himata4113 wrote:
| I mean I didn't say it was a good thing. It's a benefit
| (to the government) that it is already widespread and
| accepted as part of life.
| lossolo wrote:
| > They have to keep their head down for fear it will get
| cut off (figuratively speaking, mostly). I doubt the
| majority of Chinese civilians are happy to be in a
| repressed state such as the one they're in.
|
| Around 100 million Chinese people travel abroad every
| year, and they all return to their country of their own
| free will. Go to China and see it for yourself. Talk with
| people, you would be surprised. Go to Shanghai and visit
| the provinces. This is not North Korea, you can talk with
| people normally. The majority of them will tell you that
| they are happy with how much their lives have improved
| over the last five decades. Every five years during those
| decades, life got better and better for most of them. And
| if you read about their history, you will see that this
| is their natural state. China has a long history of
| centralized, bureaucratic governance (more than 2,000
| years since the Qin Dynasty) in which stability and order
| are prioritized over political pluralism.
| duskdozer wrote:
| How much more surveillance and lack of privacy is there than
| the US? The US also has
|
| - surveilled cities and less dense places through doorbell
| cams - surveilled digital communications - social credit
| scores (try getting a bank account if you've opted out of
| things like lexisnexis etc)
| renewiltord wrote:
| For the majority of Americans, "the US falling behind" is not
| something they care about. The principal thing they care about
| is not whether the whole is ruined but whether they have an
| appropriate portion.
|
| An American would prefer that a field make 1 unit of rice if
| everyone got 1/n units. This is different from cultures where
| the preference is that you maximize your wellbeing (older
| America) so that if someone could figure out how to make the
| field make 10 units of rice, it's okay if he makes 8 units and
| everyone else gets 2/n units.
|
| The modern American cultural optimum aims to minimize |x_i -
| x_j| while growth cultures attempt to maximize x_i. An ironic
| reversal of roles.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| America is also, fundamentally, a divided country where
| people disagree over basic things (such as the distribution
| of rice) and there is a massive industry dedicated to
| amplifying that division.
|
| On almost every topic, the discussion will turn to what that
| other evil part of society is doing to disrupt the good guys.
| If people are arguing about how to house people or stop crime
| (both basic issues), you will never move from these topics.
|
| Most visible example is public infrastructure, middle-income
| countries in SE Asia have better infrastructure than the US
| (and most of Europe)...this makes no sense within the
| prevailing political/economic/social context in the West, it
| should just be totally impossible.
| pbronez wrote:
| Maybe. Agree that zero-sum thinking sucks. You gotta grow the
| pie. But. You also have to share the big pie.
|
| In your example, the current crisis can be represented as:
|
| A field exists and produces 1 unit.
|
| A financial entity buys the field and applies unsustainable
| methods to increase production 100 units, keep 99.5 of them,
| distributes 0.5/n. People are pissed that they're getting
| half of what they used to despite incredible productivity.
| The people elect a leader to fix the situation. The leader
| confronts the financial entity, and returns to the people
| with 4 units in their pocket and excuses.
| raddan wrote:
| That's a rather tall argument given that the US is currently
| experiencing historic income inequality [1].
|
| [1] https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/exploding-wealth-
| inequality-u...
| hshdhdhj4444 wrote:
| America has a genuinely crazy side.
|
| No other country in the world has anything like the
| Republicans in the US, who are the only major political party
| in the world to oppose the existence of man made climate
| change.
|
| There may be political parties in the rest of the world that
| say that the cost of tackling climate change is too high, but
| they don't dispute the factual reality of it.
|
| The Republicans were in this position between about 2008 and
| 2014 when their leaders were McCain and Romney, but Romney's
| lack of insanity inspired a massive backlash within the crazy
| part of American society that then made Donald Trump their
| primary winner in 2016 as a repudiation to the not completely
| insane Republican leadership.
|
| I know HN loves to pretend that the Republicans and the
| Democrats are just two sides of the same coin, but this can
| be shown to be objectively false by comparing to political
| parties abroad. Democrats are a normal European center left
| to center right party with all the flaws that brings with
| them.
|
| The Republicans are now a party of insanity.
| drstewart wrote:
| It's how Europe falls behind, you mean.
|
| Why do they always get left out of the comparisons? Because
| they're so far behind anything it would be an insult to include
| them?
| Markoff wrote:
| you can buy Chinese phones/cars in EU, so we don't fall
| behind
|
| though in 3.5 months they are gonna ban EU consumers from
| buying cheap things directly from AliExpress and groom July
| 1st you will have to pay 3EUR for each ordered item,
| including that 1EUR screen protector, because it's much
| better when you can feed some useless middleman than saving
| money, thanks EU!
| temp8830 wrote:
| > you can buy Chinese phones/cars in EU, so we don't fall
| behind
|
| With that logic, every programmer on this site should spend
| as much time as possible on Facebook. This will make their
| salary equal to that of a Meta employee!
|
| Consuming something is not the same as being able to
| produce it.
| drstewart wrote:
| DeepSeek is available in the US, so why did anyone imply
| the US will fall behind in AI tech?
| giwook wrote:
| I think this is probably because Europe is considered part of
| "the West".
| orwin wrote:
| Europe is third since the 2000s. The pushed the Euro to try
| to limit it (and from the mouth of someone who was present
| when they pushed, it was also caused by the black Wednesday
| of 92, the attacks on currencies increased, and the cost to
| rebuff them too).
|
| And yes, basically, no one should include europe in the
| comparison until US oil fields are depleted, and even then at
| best it would be a race for the second place. You can't
| compete without gas and oil or a huge manufacturing lead, and
| europe don't have any, and only have specific subset of
| manufacturing (basically sensors, electronics, avionics,
| optics, and handmade clothing) that isn't workforce-
| intensive, nor resource-intensive.
| phatfish wrote:
| Maybe, but BMW are at least trying.
| https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/electric-
| cars/electric-3-...
|
| At least the Chinese tech will be available to European
| consumers, nothing says insecure like pretending a competitor
| doesn't exist.
| nxm wrote:
| At the expense of European companies...good luck.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Data centers are (a) private not public and (b) throwing money
| at the problem on the assumption of being able to capture a
| significant chunk of all white collar incomes.
|
| And they're running into the public issues already, such as
| lack of large power transformer availability and noise
| complaints from trying to generate their own power.
| Mashimo wrote:
| But gas pumps / electric charging stations are also private.
| bigbadfeline wrote:
| Many things are private but some of them are more private
| than others, the details can be quite intriguing.
|
| Plenty of gas pumps to go around, more of them aren't going
| to provide anybody private with more of what they crave the
| most which data centers do provide. That's the reason for
| the push to abandon EVs and reduce their competing demand
| for scarce electricity.
|
| New electric capacity, paid for by the ratepayers, would
| benefit those same ratepayers if used for EV charging but
| big biz isn't in the game for them.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| In a word, yes. In a few words, yes that's the entire situation
| summary. No long term strategy exists for the entire country.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| There might be no industrial long term planning, but I think
| it's because the US operates in a different mode -- financial
| (late) Capitalism.
| beeflet wrote:
| That's the problem with late capitalism- we need an economy
| that makes people want to get up and early.
| jmyeet wrote:
| China is what happens when you put scientists and engineers in
| charge [1][2].
|
| 20 years ago China had a single high speed rail link in
| Shanghai going to the airport. Now they have more than 30,000
| miles of high speed rail where they've bootstrapped all the
| civil engineering, they make their own trains, etc. The system
| handles over 4 billion trips annually and they built the entire
| thing for an estimated $900 billion [3], which is now less than
| the US spends on the military in a single year.
|
| Every $1 you spend on the military is $1 you don't spend on
| housing, healthcare, education, roads, trains and other
| infrastructure. Eisenhower warned about this 60+ years ago [4].
|
| [1]: https://en.clickpetroleoegas.com.br/All-of-
| China%27s-preside...
|
| [2]: https://www.economist.com/china/2023/03/09/many-of-chinas-
| to...
|
| [3]: https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2152581/huge-668bn-
| high...
|
| [4]: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-
| dwigh...
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| On a semi related note, _military leaders_ in the US have
| been warning about the dangers of the American deficit and
| have a long history of trying to cut waste by getting rid of
| weapons programs and military bases they don't need but are
| constantly blocked by the civilian leadership in Congress
| because of the job loss.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Xi is the first President/leader China has had who literally
| never worked another job outside of politics and doesn't
| speak a foreign language. They gave him a degree in chemical
| engineering when the universities re-opened after the
| cultural revolution but he never even had to pretend to use
| it. Hu, Jiang, and Deng actually worked as engineers and
| spoke languages besides Chinese (Russian and/or English).
|
| Despite all that, Xi has done really well for China. I was
| totally predicting the opposite given that Xi was clearly a
| departure from the technocratic leaders that previously ran
| China (I thought Xi was a Mao throwback).
| jmyeet wrote:
| Xi is a fascinating figure. I had real concerns when he
| pushed through repealing term limits. I thought this could
| be another Putin but that hasn't been the case.
|
| First, he's had a real anti-corruption push that seems to
| be meaningful and seems to apply to senior government
| officials and the wealthy (eg Jack Ma).
|
| Second, real estate speculation was rampant in China for
| years but Xi quietly popped the bubble more than a decade
| agao. The property market is still in a dire state but he
| took the long-term view that housing should be for, well,
| housing, not investment. He did this by basically
| increasing the margin requirements that ultimately caused
| the Evergrade default. I think history will show this was
| the correct decision.
|
| Third, Xi grew up as "Mao royalty". His father was one of
| Mao's lieutennants and he was a privileged child of that
| circle. But when he was a teenager, his father was purged
| in the Cultural Revolution and was ultimately expelled from
| the CCP. Xi repeatedly tried to join the party and
| ultimately succeeded then spending years quietly working in
| backwaters.
|
| Lastly, Xi has quietly purused a policy of not relying on
| the West. Investments in renewable energy has been truly
| massive. Watch in the coming years as China catches up to
| ASML and TSMC with EUV, a technology that US has embargoed
| from export to China.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Entire subthread is excellent, great comments and
| observations by all.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| There were lots of red flags with Xi, and I'm afraid the
| world will learn the wrong lessons from his success.
| Maybe Democracy really is overrated, after all it gave us
| Trump...twice. The world looks at the USA and China as
| role models, and only the latter don't look like a
| complete clown.
|
| He did suffer from the cultural revolution but afterward
| he was elevated with strong preference. He even lost one
| of those Chinese "elections" where they take the top 20
| out of 21 candidates, and they still let him through.
| GenerWork wrote:
| >First, he's had a real anti-corruption push that seems
| to be meaningful and seems to apply to senior government
| officials and the wealthy (eg Jack Ma).
|
| Anti-corruption pushes in the government are 100% purges,
| just under a different name. As for Jack Ma, wasn't he
| targeted because he said something that the censors
| really didn't like all while pushing some finance app? My
| memory is hazy as to why it happened, but it certainly
| wasn't because he was wealthy.
| enraged_camel wrote:
| Jack Ma's situation wasn't corruption though. He simply
| made the mistake of publicly criticizing the government's
| economic policy. He was disappeared shortly after. Then
| he reappeared a few months later and he has been on his
| best behavior since.
| GIFtheory wrote:
| > First, he's had a real anti-corruption push that seems
| to be meaningful and seems to apply to senior government
| officials and the wealthy (eg Jack Ma).
|
| Uh, interesting take... I think many would say he was
| silenced/disappeared by the CCP for daring to openly
| speak against it.
| nxm wrote:
| Not a single country can excel at everything, and China heavily
| subsidizes their auto industry to undercut competition. It is
| not a fair game.
| mbfg wrote:
| More importantly, the US has banned these cars in America to give
| protection to american manufacturers.
| thegreatpeter wrote:
| Definitely not bc these brands are being propped up by their
| government in order to flood world markets.
|
| Everyone should be able to make a luxury 30k vehicle
| sustainably
| netfortius wrote:
| This [0] is the actual (good) news, linked from the article.
|
| [0] https://www.techradar.com/vehicle-tech/hybrid-electric-
| vehic...
| somewhereoutth wrote:
| With 5 minute charging, suddenly conventional gas stations can
| be used for EVs just as they are for ICE. Nice thing about
| 'plugging in' as opposed to 'filling up' is that a charging car
| can be left completely unattended (while you go to pay, get a
| coffee, or whatever).
|
| Seems that the technological barriers have been overcome, now
| we just need to build out the infrastructure - which could be
| as simple as retooling existing gas stations. No need to
| electrify every parking space or such like.
| airspresso wrote:
| Yes, retooling gas stations is the way to go. Already
| happening in Norway where stations now show the price of kWh
| in addition to gas and diesel prominently on signs by the
| road. Charging is just a different kind of pump.
| pimlottc wrote:
| Neither article really explains how they are able to charge
| this fast, aside from "vertical integration" and slightly
| increased energy density in the battery design. No real details
| on the charging technology itself.
| _fizz_buzz_ wrote:
| Sounds like the trick is to use 1.5MW chargers. I guess
| that'll do it. I suppose the question is how they handel this
| thermally.
| russli1993 wrote:
| there needs to be battery chemistry improvements.
| Otherwise, with existing batteries, charging at these
| speeds will cause too much heat and shorten battery life
| span. BYD is offering 1.5MW charging with increased battery
| lifespan and without increasing the heat dissipation
| requirements. Another improvement compared to current crop
| of batteries is charge curve. Charging from 80 to 95%, BYD
| batteries can handle higher power than current batteries at
| MAX
| russli1993 wrote:
| BYD did not go to specifics about their blade 2.0 battery
| that enables this, but there has to be battery chemistry and
| manufacturing advancements. CATL shared some details on their
| 12C LFP batteries before, they lowered li-ion mobility
| resistance, increased how the anode and cathode can accept
| more li-ions at faster rates. Another improvement for blade
| 2.0 battery is the charge curve is much better. 80 - 90 % can
| have much higher charging rates.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Is this even as fast as the existing CATL tech? It seems to
| just be where batteries are heading through a bunch of small
| improvements over time.
| tantalor wrote:
| https://archive.is/Xp40l
| functionmouse wrote:
| How foolish it must feel to buy a new car without this tech in a
| world that has this tech, only to fund the people spending our
| tax money to keep it from us and continue pushing fossil fuels.
| stanski wrote:
| I may be in the market for a new car soon, which I hope to keep
| for at least a decade, so this kind of thing bothers me. I
| don't want to buy something that's already years behind on
| efficiency.
| IX-103 wrote:
| Agreed. I've been on the market for a new car to replace my
| aging Prius for for the past three years. All of my top choices
| are "not sold in the US".
|
| I don't need a giant fricken SUV to go to work. I don't need
| 400 miles of range (the other car does that when it's needed).
| But I do need room to fit the kids and their stuff in the car.
| There's literally nothing sold in the USA that's suitable for
| this use case.
| christkv wrote:
| Absolute garbage. Just stop and think for one second what kind of
| power delivery is required to do this and you will quickly
| realize that's it's not feasible anywhere other than as a demo.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| not feasible yet, keep in mind we regularly transport tons of
| power in the form of gasoline - an absolutely massive
| (literally) chain of logistics
|
| moving and storing electricity can vastly simplify the process
| and work like this will mature
| pimlottc wrote:
| They claim to have rolled out 4000 fast chargers so far.
|
| Although it also says the car that supports the max charging
| speed hasn't hit the market yet so seems yet to be proven in
| the wild.
| somewhereoutth wrote:
| > Thousands of FLASH Charging stations have already been
| installed in China, and BYD has committed to a global rollout
| that will include an initial wave of FLASH Chargers in Europe.
| Further details on the plans, and how they will support the
| Z9GT's arrival, will be revealed in due course.
|
| https://bydukmedia.com/en/news-articles/denza-z9gt-to-start-...
| lima wrote:
| They use a buffer battery, it's quite feasible with that.
| tjoff wrote:
| Feels like such a waste for marginal gains?
|
| With the range as good as a modern EV the charge time already
| isn't a particularly that bad. I'd much prefer more chargers
| (so that you can combine charging with something else you
| were going to do anyway) than faster ones.
| raddan wrote:
| I tend to agree but I think the strategy here is to convert
| people who stubbornly cling to gas vehicles because EVs
| somehow defy their expectations. I have been approached
| many times at highway rest stops by people who are curious
| and slightly skeptical about the EV value proposition. They
| see me hanging around the vehicle for a half hour and think
| "ugh, no thanks" as if that's all I do when I travel. What
| they're not seeing is that I rarely use public chargers at
| all, because 99% of my charging is done either at home or
| at the charger in the parking lot at work. It's really just
| road trips. Not to mention, if you're an ICE owner hanging
| around long enough at a rest stops to notice that I'm
| hanging around, are you really that much faster on a road
| trip?!!
|
| Back on topic, I am ok with losing a little efficiency in
| the fast charging process if it means that more people
| switch away from a horribly inefficient and polluting
| technology.
| s369610 wrote:
| looks like they are aiming for 20,000 this year and already
| have 4,239 "In the first two months of this year alone, BYD has
| already completed 4,239 charging stations"
| https://carnewschina.com/2026/03/05/byd-unveils-blade-batter...
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| I'll bite. They dumped a lot of power in a small amount of
| time. Sounds like the perfect job for a mega capacitor to
| streamline deployments. Other than the successful technology,
| Mrs. Lincoln, what are your gripes?
| christkv wrote:
| Cool now at your busy "gas" station keep it working as the
| pile gets exhausted and you don't have the supporting grid to
| be able to deliver the needed power to keep it stocked with
| "gas".
|
| At least not in Europe.
|
| From what I read it's 1500 kW at 1000V or Peak use of 1.5 MW
| at 1000 A. That's a crazy amount of power.
|
| You will exhaust your piles quickly, or they are enormous. So
| it's like "quick-charge" until we run out?
| russli1993 wrote:
| Chargers don't charge at 1.5MW 100% of time. You have grid
| storage batteries serving as buffer. It can be charged at
| steady rate by the grid all the time. People need time to
| drive in and out of the station. The math works out really
| well.
| russli1993 wrote:
| They simply use a few grid storage batteries. Chargers don't
| charge at 1.5MW 100% of time. You also have people driving in
| and out of the station. The math works out really well.
| nneonneo wrote:
| Based on the figures here, they're claiming around 400 miles of
| range added in 300 seconds (60% of the full 677 mile range);
| contrast this with around 100 seconds for a typical gas pump (8
| gal/min) and typical efficiency (30 mpg). It suggests that you'd
| need around 5MW chargers to truly get to the speed of a gas pump.
|
| On the other hand, 5 minutes is already a huge improvement over
| 15-30 minutes, and it's fast enough to remove much of the
| friction of recharging an EV.
|
| Really wish this kind of tech would come to North America...
| _fizz_buzz_ wrote:
| 5mins is really as good as it has to be. Almost everyone needs
| a bathroom break or gets a drink/snack after 400miles.
| deeg wrote:
| Its also fast enough that I don't have to plan for it. I
| could be running errands, note a low charge, and unless I'm
| in a big hurry stop for a charge.
| timbit42 wrote:
| And you can do that while charging as there is no need to sit
| and hold a pump handle.
| ekr wrote:
| Although the thought of getting an electric car has passed
| through my mind on a few occasions, I'm not 100% familiar with
| the intricate technical details. (for some reason, the tax
| incentives where I live are still in favor of continuing with the
| small petrol car I have. Taxes are primarily a function of weight
| in the Netherlands, and anything besides a lightweight Dacia
| Spring would imply significantly higher monthly expenditure for
| me).
|
| What I'm wondering w.r.t. this article is: wouldn't such fast
| charging shorten the battery lifespan?
|
| I have experience with ebike batteries. Bosch in particular, with
| very decent 29E samsung cells, that after 70k km or so, basically
| halved their capacity. I imagine this effect is severily reduced
| with a car battery because there are a lot more than 10p, so all
| the wear is distributed more evenly, and 29E are very old
| technology.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| I believe you meant to write "10S" instead of 10p. I'm not 100%
| sure, but you were talking about e-bike batteries, which are
| often 36V, made out of 10 cells (or banks of cells) in series.
| The nominal voltage of most lithium chemistries is 3.6-3.7V.
|
| EV batteries have many more cells in series, for example my car
| is 104S, and 800V cars have (obviously) more than 200 cells in
| series.
|
| And the longevity of car batteries isn't about wear being
| distributed "evenly" (a healthy battery can't really wear
| "unevenly", you always load all cells at once). EVs take care
| of their batteries, they cool them, heat them, balance them
| periodically, and they don't actually pull that much power from
| them. They also keep the cells within pretty conservative
| voltage limits.
| ekr wrote:
| Indeed, I meant 10S. And what I meant by load being
| distributed along more cells, is that since you have many
| more cells, current drawn from each is lower. Which greatly
| prolongs the lifetime.
|
| And hence the question I had with charging too fast. Since
| discharging faster clearly wears them more quickly, surely
| charging faster has a similar effect, since it's mostly the
| reversed process? A question probably easily answered with a
| query to a LLM.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| "Number of cells" doesn't really tell you anything about
| current and how it will affect the battery. The number of
| cells in series gives you the nominal voltage of the entire
| battery, and the P number (number of cells in parallel)
| rarely tells you anything useful -- three 2000 mAh cells in
| parallel are equivalent to one 6000 mah cell, and both
| approaches are valid and used.
|
| What you care about is actually the mass of the cells,
| basically the total weight of the active material. More
| material means higher capacity and can withstand more
| current.
|
| For example, my car is 104S and that's it, no parallel
| connections, but the individual cells are huge (~170 Ah
| each).
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| Rule of thumb for modern EVs is to not care about the battery
| at all. They are expected to last longer than the car. I would
| doubt even faster charging significantly changes this, or if it
| does it's worth the trade off to those who need it.
| rossjudson wrote:
| +1000. Who cares. It's good enough.
| bdangubic wrote:
| dont say that or used EV prices are gonna skyrocket :)
| thephyber wrote:
| "Rule of thumb" is a heuristic, which is necessarily
| inaccurate.
|
| My only EV was a 1Gen Nissan Leaf, which is a perfect example
| of the EV that violates your assumptions.
| twodave wrote:
| I don't think the first gen leaf is what parent had in mind
| when referring to "modern EVs"...
| pepperoni_pizza wrote:
| Research on the current EVs shows that they degrade by on
| average 2.3 % of original capacity a year, but there is a
| strong dependency on how much the vehicle is used and how often
| it is DC fast charged, i.e. there is time based degradation and
| usage based degradation.
|
| Low use vehicles have degradation of 1.5 % a year, heavily used
| vehicles mostly slow charged had degradation of 2.2 % a year
| and heavily used vehicles mostly fast charged had highest
| degradation of 3 % a year.
|
| Now before you think that means the capacity will halve in X
| years (33, 23 and 17), the article also notes that the
| degradation is not linear and it was faster in new vehicles and
| then slowed down - with no way to know if it will slow down
| further or continue in this manner, etc, until we have a
| sufficient sample of 20 years old modern EVs.
|
| Link to article https://www.geotab.com/blog/ev-battery-health/
| rossjudson wrote:
| Where does "20 years" come from? What's wrong with "10
| years"?
|
| At the 200,000 mile mark battery life is expected to be ~85%.
| That's what actual data shows. 200,000 is 13 years of driving
| 15,000 miles a year.
|
| https://recharged.com/articles/tesla-model-y-battery-
| degrada...
| pepperoni_pizza wrote:
| I picked 20 years arbitrarily, what I meant is that we
| don't have data on how modern EV batteries will look when
| 20 years old, because they have not been around that long.
|
| The whole LFP chemistry is pretty new, on automotive
| timescales, and lot of the older data on degradation comes
| from the first few generations of Nissan Leaf, which did
| not have battery heating and cooling.
| Tade0 wrote:
| I have a feeling that half the reason they're doing this is that
| they don't have a good idea how to increase energy efficiency.
|
| Case in point:
|
| 2026 BMW i3 - 900km WLTP from a 108kWh battery.
|
| 2026 Denza Z9 GT - 800km WLTP from a 122kWh pack.
|
| The former charges at a maximum of 400kW, while the latter at
| over twice that which saves... about 10 minutes at the charger
| after 450km of driving(12 vs 22 minutes approx).
|
| Many such examples with Chinese manufacturers putting 700kg
| battery packs into the vehicles just to be able to say it's this
| and that kWh.
|
| I don't know about anyone here but after 400km or so I'm done and
| want to at least stretch my legs.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| This is an NMC vs LFP battery comparison.
|
| They have different trade-offs but LFP is gradually taking over
| from the bottom of the market and heading up market in a
| classic disruptive manner.
|
| They are heavier but cheaper and safer and better longevity.
| jaywee wrote:
| I think one of the reasons for this is to have very high
| throughput charging stations in dense urban areas (like central
| Beijing).
| flopsamjetsam wrote:
| > 2026 BMW i3 - 900km WLTP from a 108kWh battery.
|
| I had to do a double take: remembering the i3s as the little
| almost SmartCar-sized EVs. Great cars, I still see a few around
| here, but I couldn't imagine them extending the range of those
| to 900km!
|
| Turns out they just released the i3 sedan, which is like a
| 3-series. And good to see they're making the design similar
| between the new 3-series and the new i3. I like the i4, but
| really need something more 3-series in size.
| sgt wrote:
| Yes that new one is not an i3, not even in spirit. The
| original i3 was super light, quirky, fun, innovative in so
| many ways. They just didn't sell enough. People wanted more
| boring cars.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| It was also $50k for a car that only got 120-150mi of
| range. It was a joke car. The reason it didn't sell well is
| because it was a compliance car, not because it didn't
| innovative. If it had a reasonable range (say, Chevy Bolt
| 200-250ish) in all electric for the same price, I bet it
| would have sold much much better.
| orbital-decay wrote:
| _> Just taking an existing fast charger with 150- or 350-kW
| capacity and swapping in the latest and greatest 1,500-kW
| chargers wouldn't get anyone faster speeds. The system would need
| all new "pipes"--grid capacity--to actually move that much
| current._
|
| The grid doesn't necessarily mean "pipes" or power lines. You
| don't build a pipeline to every gas station. Mobile charging
| robots work pretty well in China.
| tim333 wrote:
| Also I guess they could put a large battery at the charging
| station so it can take say a steady 200kw from the grid and be
| able to kick out 1500kw for ten minutes occasionally. That
| could also charge from cheap off peak electricity.
| boringg wrote:
| Traffic congestion costs for electricity is going to get wild
| if we start stacking all sorts of random >= 1.5 MW demands
| scattered everywhere.
| stavros wrote:
| Imagine if we had a parallel information network that could
| coordinate the charging times of all these things in real-
| time.
| erk__ wrote:
| This is what they already are doing, the article is behind a
| paywall so no clue if they say it there but you can for
| example see this article about it:
| https://www.etechvolution.com/p/byd-megawatt-flash-
| charging-...
| Onavo wrote:
| Supercaps are viable for this sort of short term charge and
| discharge. The much maligned donut labs is suspected to be a
| license built Nordic hybrid supercap battery model
| quantum_state wrote:
| Big money in US politics is the root of lots bad things happening
| in the country ... some serious change is needed to truly achieve
| MAGA ...
| glimshe wrote:
| Cool! My only concern is that Wired has a very long and
| consistent history of advertising technologies that don't work
| quite as they say. So let's hope this is real.
| russli1993 wrote:
| BYD is shipping both charging stations and cars with blade
| battery 2.0 first half of 2026. Both economic and premium
| models can charge from 0 - 97% under 12 minutes. They are also
| building these charging stations right now and few hundreds are
| already operational.
| RevEng wrote:
| I wonder if Gil Tal has ever used an EV as their daily vehicle.
|
| I have had two EVs in the last three years - a Kona and an IONIQ
| 5. I have greatly enjoyed them both. But one thing was a downside
| that I just had to accept: poor charging.
|
| Granted, I live in the Canadian Prairies full of small towns a
| fair distance apart. And it's not exactly progressive - I'm
| actually being taxed for owning an EV. The charging
| infrastructure is sparse with 50-100kW charges every 100km. On
| long distance trips I spend 1 hour charging for every 2 hours
| driving. To say that faster charging wouldn't make a meaningful
| difference is simply wrong. Sure, it doesn't have to be 5 minutes
| - even 10-15 would be enough - but current chargers don't get
| anywhere close to that, even with 350kW, which rarely if ever
| reach those charging speeds.
|
| For driving around the city I never bat an eye. I have a level 2
| charger in my garage and there's one at work that is decently
| priced should I ever need it. I never use a fast charger for
| local travel. But long distance travel is what people are worried
| about and having much faster charging would most certainly make a
| difference for me and for them.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| Not if the charger doesn't work.
| durjrjdjdk wrote:
| Put diesel generator on trailer, and charge while driving. Best
| of both worlds!
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Kona at least won't drive while charging.
| ranit wrote:
| Could you please elaborate on:
|
| > I'm actually being taxed for owning an EV.
| __oh_es wrote:
| Some countries charge a road tax or annual vehicle tax, and
| ev's are often except as a green incentive
| phil21 wrote:
| and some places charge a higher annual fee for EVs due to
| roads being largely funded by gas taxes.
|
| Seems totally fair to me so long as the averages largely
| line up for both vehicle types.
| QGQBGdeZREunxLe wrote:
| https://www.saskatchewan.ca/business/taxes-licensing-and-
| rep...
| jbm wrote:
| Alberta is imposing a charge on EV registrations, and they
| increased it again this year. At some point I'm hoping courts
| curtail their attempt at imposing gas cars but given how
| Canadian courts are hamstrung at obvious human rights issues
| in places like Quebec, I doubt they will do anything about
| Alberta either.
| zetanor wrote:
| >Canadian courts are hamstrung at obvious human rights
| issues
|
| Huh?
| b112 wrote:
| Paying the fair share for road maintenance isn't a human
| rights issue.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Reducing carbon emissions most certainly is a human
| rights issue. I absolutely can not breathe when I go to
| large cities. I live in a village, drive an electric, and
| charge it from rooftop solar.
| b112 wrote:
| You actually can breath in "large cities", unless you
| have a pre-existing health condition. Otherwise, all the
| people in those "large cities" would already be dead, and
| they'd cease being "large cities". Or at least, populated
| ones.
|
| "Carbon emissions" is a human rights issue, just as 1000
| other things are. Whether "reducing" carbon emissions is
| determined to be a right is not black and white as of
| yet.
|
| Regardless, leveling a road tax has nothing to do with
| that. It is merely a tax to be inline with what everyone
| else pays. You may as well say you have a right to a free
| electric car too, or maybe a right to get 50% off.
|
| You do realise the roads have to be maintained, yes? And
| that's what the tax on gas is for, yes? I assure you,
| endless environmentalists which _don 't drive anything at
| all_, and see the construction of roads as an annoyance,
| would be upset at the idea of cars, any type of car,
| electric or otherwise, as bad. And are very upset at any
| sort of car being subsidized to increase adoption.
|
| But of course, because you own an electric car, it's now
| a human rights issue that you get to pay less. Right?
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| >You actually can breath in "large cities", unless you
| have a pre-existing health condition.
|
| Did you know that some people have health conditions?
| jjmarr wrote:
| There's a special excise tax on gasoline for highway and road
| maintenance.
|
| EVs don't pay that tax because they use normal electricity.
| So Alberta introduced a $200 EV fee to match the average
| revenue from the excise tax.
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-electric-
| veh...
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Faster charging improves things in more EV-friendly areas as
| well.
|
| I live in Southern California, and if I take a trip on the
| weekend that is more than the 240mi. freeway range my Kona
| gets, I'm never worried about being stranded, but I have waited
| in line for an hour to charge; sub-10 minute charging would cut
| wait times too, and is probably necessary if the US both wants
| to electrify its transportation and still have people take
| road-trips on major holidays.
| knocte wrote:
| > On long distance trips I spend 1 hour charging for every 2
| hours driving
|
| In Spain, I take ~600km trips every once in a while. I just
| need to charge once in the middle of the trip, in a super-
| charger that is. And the charge is 25min maximum.
|
| Your experience varies is basically opposite from my
| experience. Your situation is probably influenced, indeed, by
| the poor choice of EVs you purchased (range is the most
| important factor for me to buy) and the lack of superchargers
| around your area.
| stavros wrote:
| > Sure, it doesn't have to be 5 minutes - even 10-15 would be
| enough - but current chargers don't get anywhere close to that
|
| My car has a 83 kWh battery and charges at 150 kW, which, for
| 20% to 80% (what you want to generally do on a trip) means 20
| minutes. 20 minutes of charge gets me 300 km, and I generally
| definitely want to stop for 20 minutes every 300 km or so.
|
| I don't see how that's not "anywhere close" to 15.
| 1270018080 wrote:
| Headlines right next to each other on my HN feed
|
| "Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to
| irrelevance"
|
| "How BYD got EV chargers to work almost as fast as gas pumps"
| JonChesterfield wrote:
| If you can get a megawatt into the car batteries without setting
| them on fire, that's game over for petrol cars. And for the other
| electric vehicles that haven't worked it out yet. Only reason I'm
| on petrol is unwillingness to wait an hour to recharge the car.
|
| The rest of the infra is fine if that can be done. Array of
| batteries and/or capacitors at the supply point and draw
| continuously from the grid.
|
| Most entertainingly run a diesel generator on site if that
| doesn't work out. Lines up well with basing them at the existing
| fuel stations, got the diesel supply already sorted out.
|
| Put a bunch of solar near it when you can. Maybe sell back to
| grid, nice to have the extra capacity available.
|
| All comes down to capital deployment at that point. Do the
| calculations on how much to charge for slow car charge vs fast
| charge, fallback to slow with an apology/discount when the infra
| is struggling etc.
|
| Huge news. Iff the cars don't catch fire when plugged in.
| gverrilla wrote:
| Let's go China!
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