China’s battle of the megawatt chargers: do we need that?

More or less a week after BYD lashed out with the news of its ts new electric car platform, called ‘Super e,’ which promises charging at one megawatt, Chinese-Swedish Geely daughter Zeekr parries with the announcement of a 1.2-megawatt charger. Just to be overtaken by Huawei bragging about a 1.5-megawatt charger.

This battle of the mega chargers is all about proving it’s possible to have charging times for an EV equivalent to refueling a gasoline car. But even if there is no passenger car EV available today that can cope with that load, one can ask do we really need to charge up in only five minutes?

According to Andrew Cornelia, CEO of Mercedes-Benz High-Power Charging, who was confronted with the question by InsideEVs, the answer is probably no. “Actually, the average dwell time for filling up your gas tank is about 10 to 12 minutes,” he said. People use the tank stop to grab something to drink or eat, or use the toilets. “So that’s the time that we’re solving for.”

BYD’s opening shot

BYD was the first to fire the opening shot. A maximum charging power of 1 megawatt (1,000 kilowatts) can regain a 400 km range in just five minutes—that’s about 1.4 kilometers added per second. BYD’s premium Han L and Tang L EVs will be the first models on this platform.

Today, even the fastest-charging electric cars struggle to exceed a peak charging power of 350 kW, which takes around 15 to 20 minutes to charge their batteries from 10 to 80%. BYD’s Megawatt Flash Charger doubles Tesla’s V4 Supercharger 500 kW for cars. Tesla aims for 1.2 megawatts for trucks, which could make sense as they have far bigger batteries, and time is money.

Zeekr’s 19-minutes record

Zeekr says it focuses a lot on its charging infrastructure. In the past three years, the company updated its charging stations from 360 kW to 600 kW and then to 800 kW in China, where it operates just over 4,000 chargers. It levels Xpeng’s latest S5 supercharger (800 kW).

At the beginning of this year, Kyle Conner, the founder of Out of Spec Studios, a media company specializing in automotive content on YouTube, tested a Zeekr 7X  with a 75 kWh Golden Battery on an 840 kW rated charger from Zeekr in China.

It took him only 19 minutes to go from a flat-out battery (0%) to the full 615-kilometer range (CLTC). Now, we’re talking about 1.2 megawatts. The supercharging station announced by Zeekr’s Vice-President Zhao Yuhui for China will have 10 plugs, each capable of delivering 1.2 MW of power.

Next in line is China’s telecom giant Huawei, which will unveil a 1.44-megawatt charger on April 22. Theoretically, this could replenish a passenger EV’s battery from zero to full in 15 minutes or add 20 kWh per minute. But it also says it is thinking about trucks instead.

Charging on the fly

Andrew Cornelia of Mercedes says it could make sense to take ten to fifteen minutes to ‘fill up’ your EV. “It may only take three or five minutes to fill a gas tank, but people often grab a coffee or some scratchers, too.”

He sees more in making EV charging a subordinate matter to doing things like making a food & drink stop, shopping at the supermarket, or dining out while you’re car is sucking energy for five minutes or two hours, whatever time it takes for you to do something that matters. 

The need for a five-minute charge is something in people’s minds who grew up with their fossil fuel habits, but the idea that it is technically feasible could be crucial. “It’s important to promote the message that charging can hypothetically and in certain use cases deliver power at this output and at this speed,” he said. “But it’s not the predominant use case.”