- BYD and CATL are involved in a race to reduce charging times
- Fast charging dominated this year’s Beijing Auto Show
- Charging times as short as 6.5 minutes are currently being touted
This year’s Beijing Auto Show proved the perfect opportunity for China to showcase its automotive might, with 17 exhibition halls housing more than 1,500 vehicles and the technological advancements powering them.
In fact, in the two years since the Beijing Auto Show was last held (it alternates with the Shanghai Auto Show), a brand new convention center has been built next to the existing exhibition hall – a fitting visual metaphor for China’s booming auto industry.
With new cars comes new technology and the event was also the perfect venue to showcase the latest battery and charging technology, with a number of companies vying to dramatically reduce electric vehicle charging times to less than 10 minutes.
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Right now in the Western world you’re lucky if you can get a 10-80% charge done in 30 minutes or less, but CATL recently introduced its Shenxing 3 EB battery which it claims can get to 10-98% in 6.5 minutes.
BYD also has battery technology capable of charging from 10 to 97 percent in just nine minutes, while even second-tier Chinese battery suppliers including CALB Group, EVE Energy and Sunwoda have all unveiled products capable of boosting power from 10 to 70 percent in less than 10 minutes, according to the South China Morning Post.
Analysis: all electric for a boost
It’s not just four-wheeled electric vehicles that received a charging boost at the Beijing Auto Show. Sunwoda also wants to apply its know-how to electric bikes, introducing a battery that charges from 10 to 80 percent in 20 minutes and lasts at least 2,000 cycles, depending on its manufacturer.
This would effectively allow e-bike owners to take even long journeys and then recharge at coffee stops, rather than waiting the several hours that this usually takes today.
“The time required to replenish energy may be the final frontier where electric vehicles have yet to completely overtake gasoline cars in China,” Li Xianyang (battery specialist at Sunwoda) told the South China Morning Post. “So everyone has to compete on time. »
No matter how you look at it, China seems to be light years ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to offering innovative and fast charging solutions for electric vehicles.
Aside from its groundbreaking megawatt charging sockets, it is also a provider of battery swap technology, with domestic automaker Nio proving that a complete swap takes three minutes with a live demonstration at the Beijing Auto Show.
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