China's BYD promises 5-minute car recharging in new threat to Tesla

DPA

Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 9:37 AM 2 min read

Chinese car giant BYD has announced a fast charging system for electric vehicles that can replenish a battery in about the time it takes to fill up a fuel tank with petrol.

The so-called "Super e-Platform" offers a peak charge of one megawatt or enough to juice up an electric car battery within five to eight minutes and provide a range of up to 470 kilometres, company founder Wang Chuanfu said.

The announcement adds to the pressure on Tesla from China, and BYD has already pledged to overtake the US brand this year as the world's largest manufacturer of electric cars.

BYD's stellar charging speed comes from halving the internal resistance in the batteries, which normally slows down the rate of replenishment.

By comparison, Tesla’s Superchargers take 15 minutes to charge and provide a range of 480 km, while the new CLA from Mercedes can manage a range of 325 km after 10 minutes of charging.

Lengthy charging times and limited ranges which make drivers anxious about longer journeys have so far stopped many consumers from switching to EVs from petrol and and diesel vehicles.

"In order to completely solve users' charging anxiety, our goal is to make the charging time of electric vehicles as short as the refuelling time of ICE vehicles," said Wang.

Testing was carried out with the new BYD Han L saloon which is only available in China. The company said it will start selling vehicles with the new technology from next month.

The news pushed up BYD shares on markets around the world on Tuesday, but experts pointed out that not every car is built to withstand the world-leading recharging rate.

Vehicles would need 1,000-volt architecture with batteries, motors and heat management capable of coping with the power transferred during such ultra-fast charging. BYD said plans to build more than 4,000 of the new charging stations across China.