Woah, BYD's 'megawatt' EV charging system cuts re-juicing to five minutes

BYD is trying to defy traditionally understood laws of physics and has confirmed a ‘flash’ charging system that can recharge an EV battery to around 250 miles of range in only five minutes. Wait, what?

Yep, its Super e Platform can now hit a peak power delivery of 1,000kW via "a new generation of automotive-grade silicon carbide power chips", a fancy single-module motor capable of 30,000rpm, and a comprehensively upgraded three-core electrical system. That megawatt is twice the power of the latest generation of Tesla Supercharger.

And breathe. Of course not every car is built to support such speeds, so you can’t quite yet plug in your Leaf and hope for the best – you’d melt your cable, for starters. No, in the “kilovolt era”, as BYD calls it, vehicles will need 1000V architecture with batteries, motors, and heat management capable of supporting such crazy charging rates.

That's why it's upgraded its posh China-only Han L and Tang L EV saloons with the whole shebang. That includes a new battery designed to cut internal resistance by 50 per cent. To achieve this, there's an ultra-high-speed ion channel from the anode to the cathode.

That's seriously impressive – internal resistance inside the battery builds up over charging time and slows down the charging rate. So essentially, by doubling the power delivery and halving internal resistance, BYD reckons the Super e power system can deliver almost 250 miles' of charge in only five minutes. Woah.

Of course, there's the small matter of drawing down a humongous amount of energy from the Grid in a move that is not dissimilar to all the kettles of England being switched on straight after Corrie, but we'll save that chat for another day.

Chuanfu Wang, BYD Group chief, said: "In order to completely solve users' charging anxiety, our goal is to make the charging time of electric vehicles as short as the refueling time of ICE vehicles."

How does a future full of megawatt charging for kilovolt cars sound to you?