While most EV owners charge their vehicles at home overnight, plugging in can be a real hassle when you’re on the road. With many of today’s EVs it can take an hour to go from a 10 to 80% state-of-charge. But China’s BYD claims its new “Super e-Platform” can allow motorists get another 249 miles of range in as little as 5 minutes at public quick chargers, essentially matching the time it takes to fill up a gas tank. Headlight.News has more.
BYD will set up a network of megawatt chargers.
If you own an EV you’re likely to do 80% or more of your charging at home or office. But you’re still likely to need to power up at a public charger on occasion. And that’s where things can get frustrating. Depending upon the vehicle you’ve got, getting back on the road can take quite some time, adding up to fairly lengthy delays on a long trip.
BYD claims it has largely solved the charging problem with its new “Super e-Platform,” a high-voltage electrical system that can charge up about as fast as it normally takes to fill a gas tank.
To support the new technology, the automaker plans to set up its charging network across China, it announced this week. That could give it even more momentum as it establishes competitors as diverse as Tesla, Toyota and Volkswagen.
What’s new
The BYD Han L sedan and Tang L SUV will be the first to use the Super e-Platform.
We’ve seen big improvements in charging since the first high-volume battery-electric vehicles came to market nearly 15 years ago. But they still have a long way to go. It’s not uncommon to require as much as an hour to go from a 10 to 80% state-of-charge using even the fastest public chargers for many current models. Even the most advanced require 15 to 20 minutes, or two to three times what comparable gas models would need to fill their tanks.
That’s where BYD comes in. Short for Build Your Dreams, the Chinese automaker has rapidly gained traction in many markets – though U.S. tariffs have kept it out of this market. Even so, it now threatens to surpass Tesla as the world’s largest EV manufacturer and is betting it can gain even more traction with its new Super e-Platform.
Upcoming products will be capable of operating at 1,000-volt levels. Most current EVs can only handle 400 volts, though many automakers are beginning to migrate to 800-volt architectures to permit faster charging. Currently, Lucid is the only automaker that has gone even further, to 900 volts.
New charging network
BYD plans to set up a public network of 4,000 Megawatt chargers.
At the same time, BYD is also launching a new public charging network in China and hopes to have 4,000 chargers in place – though it isn’t saying when.
To take maximum advantage of the Super e-Platform, BYD founder and chief executive Wang Chuanfu revealed this week that they will be capable of providing peak charging speeds of 1,000 kilowatts, or 1 megawatt. Currently, most chargers operate between 50 and 350 kW.
The super e-platform are just showing up in two new BYD EVs: the Han L sedan and Tang L SUV. Where they can access that much juice, said the automaker, they’ll be able to add as much as 249 miles more range in just 5 minutes.
More BYD News
- BYD Debut Shark PHEV Pickup
- BYD CEO Claims to Have 5-Year Lead Over Western EVs
- BYD Stock Soars to Record High
Challenges ahead
Tesla is rolling out next-gen Superchargers reaching up to 500 kW.
BYD isn’t the only automaker looking to increase the power you’ll be able to get from public chargers. General Motors, for one, is launching a 500 kW network and the next-generation Tesla Superchargers will move to that level, as well
That is, however, only where they can get enough power off the grid. One of the big challenges for charger station operators is getting a consistent supply of electrons at their peak power. It’s not unusual to find chargers operating at substantially lower speeds, especially when multiple vehicles are plugged in at the same time, according to studies by J.D. Power, the University of California-Berkley, and others.
Problems with chargers, including the high number routinely found to be out of service, is seen as a critical problem limiting broader EV acceptance, Power said. On the other hand, the rollout of a reliable, high-power public network is widely seen as a key to making battery-electric vehicles more ubiquitous going forward.
The ‘Charging Gap’ is here.