Revolution in electric cars: Chinese batteries will be charged in 10 minutes
Battery manufacturers BYD and CATL will soon begin shipping lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries that can be charged from zero to 100% in ten minutes. However, another factor will limit such rapid charging of electric vehicles.
According to Autoevolution, CATL will ship Qilin 2.0 batteries supporting the 6°C standard by the end of the year, and BYD will release its Blade 2.0 batteries with similar charging characteristics in the second half of 2024.
The chemical composition of LFP batteries is constantly improving, and the best LFP cells are almost equal to NMC cells in terms of energy density. In addition, they have the advantage of fast charging, which allows them to be fully charged in 10 minutes.
Currently, the best LFP cells produced by CATL, called Shenxing, support charging at 5 °C, which means that they can theoretically be fully charged five times in an hour or approximately once in 12 minutes. The first electric vehicle to use Shenxing’s battery is the Zeekr 001, which takes only 11.5 minutes to charge from 10% to 80%. The fastest BYD battery is called Blade and supports the 4°C standard. It takes about 15 minutes to fully charge.
CATL released a 5°C Shenxing battery only in February, which explains why the Chinese manufacturer plans to release a 6°C battery by the end of 2024. However, in April, CATL also announced the Shenxing Plus LFP battery with an improved energy density of 205 Wh/kg. This will allow the electric vehicle to travel 1000 km on a single charge without increasing the size or weight of the battery. However, the Shenxing Plus battery only charges to 4°C.
Currently, BYD has only a 4°C battery, but the company traditionally makes product announcements only after it is sure that its technology is ready for production. This adds more credence to reports that BYD will release its 6°C batteries in the coming months.
However, even with such batteries, their charging speed is currently limited by the charger itself. A 6°C battery with a capacity of 100 kWh will require chargers capable of delivering more than 650 kW, including losses.
In February, Huawei announced its most powerful DC fast charger, which can deliver up to 600 kW of power. However, most DC fast chargers available to Chinese EV owners have a capacity of 120 kW.
In January-March 2024, Ukrainians purchased 4,200 passenger cars imported from China, 85% of which were electric vehicles.
