{"id":2110091,"date":"2026-08-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2110091"},"modified":"2026-08-25T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T21:00:00","slug":"10-70-per-cent-in-five-minutes-is-flash-charging-the-next-big-thing-for-evs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2110091","title":{"rendered":"10-70 per cent in five minutes: is ‘flash charging’ the next big thing for EVs?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lots of startups tell me they’ve sorted electric-car charging at petrol-stop quickness. It hasn\u2019t taken off, for two reasons. The battery chemistry itself, but also about getting enough compatible cars to support a network of the chargers. Chicken, egg, and all that. Now BYD claims to have the answer. BYD was founded as a battery maker, and still is at heart. It\u2019s also accelerating car sales here in Britain. The plan is for 600 \u2018Flash Charging\u2019 connectors in the UK within a year.<\/p>\n

They can do 10-70 per cent in five minutes on the Denza Z9 GT<\/a>. That\u2019s 74kWh added. Want more? It\u2019s 10\u201397 per cent in nine minutes. To do that, Flash Charge power goes to 1,500kW. Yes, 1.5 megawatts. To ease the grid connection stationary buffering batteries are built into the charger, plus local solar. The connector is your standard CCS socket.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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So if the chargers are the chicken, what about the egg \u2013 the battery? (Feel free to reverse the analogy.) The cars still use the company\u2019s \u2018blade battery\u2019 architecture. That means LFP chemistry, and cell-to-pack layout. But it has taken six years of careful tweaks to the layer structure, the chemistry and the cooling to get it to robustness.<\/p>\n

The enemy to any rapidly charged battery is heat. High charge currents generate heat, which damages the cells. BYD has attacked it on three fronts. Firstly, lower the cells\u2019 electrical resistance, which reduces heat generation. Second, increase the cell\u2019s tolerance to whatever elevated temps are generated. Third, improve the cooling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Resistance is cut by using an ultra-thin separator layer. Lots of nano-level engineering and structural optimisation here. Then the anode and cathode are both better optimised to accept and release the lithium ions. All of which, says BYD, means the pack is actually more robust against repeated rapid charges than the ones it has out there now. It\u2019s also a bit more energy dense.<\/p>\n

BYD tells us there\u2019s no restriction on other make cars using the Flash stations. Of course their own charge speed limit won\u2019t be overcome, so if your car needs 40 minutes on a 150kW charger it\u2019ll still need 40 minutes. No surprise BYD is considering a plugged-in time limit, or ramping up the bill for cars that sit there too long, but isn\u2019t being specific yet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lots of startups tell me they’ve sorted electric-car charging at petrol-stop quickness. It hasn\u2019t taken off, for two reasons. The battery chemistry itself, but also about getting enough compatible cars to support a network of the chargers. Chicken, egg, and all that. Now BYD claims to have the answer. BYD was founded as a battery […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-2110091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2110091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2110091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2110091\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2110091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2110091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2110091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}