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How BYD Got EV Chargers to Work Almost as Fast as Gas Pumps (https://www.wired.com)

58 points by Brajeshwar about 7 hours ago | 89 comments | View on ycombinator

functionmouse about 5 hours ago |

How foolish it must feel to buy a new car without this tech in a world that has this tech, only to fund the people spending our tax money to keep it from us and continue pushing fossil fuels.

soared about 6 hours ago |

Is this how the US falls behind? Missing technological improvements due to blind disagreements with Chinese/etc, combined with inability to update infrastructure? (Unclear how/why but datacenters being stood up so quickly seems like an exception to US’s bad construction)

orbital-decay about 5 hours ago |

>Just taking an existing fast charger with 150- or 350-kW capacity and swapping in the latest and greatest 1,500-kW chargers wouldn’t get anyone faster speeds. The system would need all new “pipes”—grid capacity—to actually move that much current.

The grid doesn't necessarily mean "pipes" or power lines. You don't build a pipeline to every gas station. Mobile charging robots work pretty well in China.

mbfg about 6 hours ago |

More importantly, the US has banned these cars in America to give protection to american manufacturers.

Tade0 about 5 hours ago |

I have a feeling that half the reason they're doing this is that they don't have a good idea how to increase energy efficiency.

Case in point:

2026 BMW i3 - 900km WLTP from a 108kWh battery.

2026 Denza Z9 GT - 800km WLTP from a 122kWh pack.

The former charges at a maximum of 400kW, while the latter at over twice that which saves... about 10 minutes at the charger after 450km of driving(12 vs 22 minutes approx).

Many such examples with Chinese manufacturers putting 700kg battery packs into the vehicles just to be able to say it's this and that kWh.

I don't know about anyone here but after 400km or so I'm done and want to at least stretch my legs.

nneonneo about 5 hours ago |

Based on the figures here, they’re claiming around 400 miles of range added in 300 seconds (60% of the full 677 mile range); contrast this with around 100 seconds for a typical gas pump (8 gal/min) and typical efficiency (30 mpg). It suggests that you’d need around 5MW chargers to truly get to the speed of a gas pump.

On the other hand, 5 minutes is already a huge improvement over 15-30 minutes, and it’s fast enough to remove much of the friction of recharging an EV.

Really wish this kind of tech would come to North America…

netfortius about 6 hours ago |

This [0] is the actual (good) news, linked from the article.

[0] https://www.techradar.com/vehicle-tech/hybrid-electric-vehic...

ekr about 5 hours ago |

Although the thought of getting an electric car has passed through my mind on a few occasions, I'm not 100% familiar with the intricate technical details. (for some reason, the tax incentives where I live are still in favor of continuing with the small petrol car I have. Taxes are primarily a function of weight in the Netherlands, and anything besides a lightweight Dacia Spring would imply significantly higher monthly expenditure for me).

What I'm wondering w.r.t. this article is: wouldn't such fast charging shorten the battery lifespan?

I have experience with ebike batteries. Bosch in particular, with very decent 29E samsung cells, that after 70k km or so, basically halved their capacity. I imagine this effect is severily reduced with a car battery because there are a lot more than 10p, so all the wear is distributed more evenly, and 29E are very old technology.

glimshe about 2 hours ago |

Cool! My only concern is that Wired has a very long and consistent history of advertising technologies that don't work quite as they say. So let's hope this is real.

quantum_state about 3 hours ago |

Big money in US politics is the root of lots bad things happening in the country … some serious change is needed to truly achieve MAGA …

tantalor about 6 hours ago |

tomohawk about 5 hours ago |

[dead]

christkv about 5 hours ago |

Absolute garbage. Just stop and think for one second what kind of power delivery is required to do this and you will quickly realize that’s it’s not feasible anywhere other than as a demo.