A Chinese automaker has developed a battery that will enable electric vehicles (EVs) to charge almost as quickly as it takes to fill a regular car's gas tank.
The new battery, named the e-platform, was developed by BYD, a Chinese firm that is overtaking Tesla as the world's top seller of electric vehicles.
Assigned a 10C rating — meaning the battery can move charge at ten times the rate of its nominal capacity — the e-platform can reach full charge in just six minutes. At its peak charging power of 1,000 kilowatts , the battery's charging rate is twice as fast as Tesla's 500 kW superchargers. This means that the two new models using the battery — BYD's Han L saloon and its Tang L SUV — can travel up to 250 miles (400 kilometers) on just a five-minute charge.
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"We have been pursuing a goal to make the charging time of electric vehicles as short as the refueling time of petrol vehicles," BYD founder Wang Chuanfu said at a launch event in Shenzhen, China. "This is the first time in the industry that the unit of megawatt has been achieved on charging power."
To charge at such rapid speeds, the e-platform works by simultaneously creating a high voltage and delivering a large current to the charging car. But high currents also tend to generate heat that damages EV batteries.
To get around this, BYD says it massively reduced the internal resistance inside the battery. The company's new silicon carbide power chips are also designed to withstand higher voltages.
To facilitate the cars' launch, BYD said it will install a network of 4,000 flash charging stations across China. This technology is currently only available in China, and the company has yet to confirm whether it will make it available internationally.
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