BYD Unveils New Super-Charging EV Tech With Peak Speeds of 1,000 kW (yahoo.com) 78
fahrbot-bot shares a report from Reuters: BYD on Monday unveiled a new platform for electric vehicles (EVs) that it said could charge EVs as quickly as it takes to pump gas and announced for the first time that it would build a charging network across China. The so-called "super e-platform" will be capable of peak charging speeds of 1,000 kilowatts (kW), enabling cars that use it to travel 400 km (249 miles) on a 5-minute charge, founder Wang Chuanfu said at an event livestreamed from the company's Shenzhen headquarters.
Charging speeds of 1,000 kW would be twice as fast as Tesla's superchargers whose latest version offers up to 500 kw charging speeds. The new charging architecture will be initially available in two new EVs -- Han L sedan and Tang L SUV priced from 270,000 yuan ($37,328.91) and BYD said it would build over 4,000 ultra-fast charging piles, or units, across China to match the new platform. "In order to completely solve our user's charging anxiety, we have been pursuing a goal to make the charging time of electric vehicles as short as the refuelling time of petrol vehicles," Wang said.
"This is the first time in the industry that the unit of megawatt (charge) has been achieved on charging power," he said.
Charging speeds of 1,000 kW would be twice as fast as Tesla's superchargers whose latest version offers up to 500 kw charging speeds. The new charging architecture will be initially available in two new EVs -- Han L sedan and Tang L SUV priced from 270,000 yuan ($37,328.91) and BYD said it would build over 4,000 ultra-fast charging piles, or units, across China to match the new platform. "In order to completely solve our user's charging anxiety, we have been pursuing a goal to make the charging time of electric vehicles as short as the refuelling time of petrol vehicles," Wang said.
"This is the first time in the industry that the unit of megawatt (charge) has been achieved on charging power," he said.
Megawatt (Score:3)
(that is rather impressive, actually)
Re: Megawatt (Score:5, Funny)
Zero-point-zero-zero-one jiggawatts!
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1,000 kW? That's a megawatt. Use the word. (that is rather impressive, actually)
It is, but you won't just be plunking those down without the participation of your local electric utility.
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Sorry, but I'm an American. How many horse powers per hour/second/minutes is that?
Re:Megawatt (Score:4, Funny)
Enough to fling a pound of iron across 2.5 football fields in the time it takes for one Superbowl commercial to play.
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Sorry, but I'm an American. How many horse powers per hour/second/minutes is that?
It doesn't matter where you went to school. All of us will need to learn about electrical charging soon.
Using 1 megawatt to charge the battery for five minutes is just how fast the charging is happening. The question you're asking is about as relevant as asking how many gallons per minute is a gas pump filling your car. If the gas pump at the Chevron station can fill my gas tank twice as fast as the pump at Costco, does that make it better?
Actually, for EVs, sometimes the difference between a 5 minute ch
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A thousand amps at a thousand volts? That's a serious conductor. Are they using solid bus bars instead of cables?
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Re:Megawatt (Score:4, Informative)
I would not expect so. For high voltage most of the current will move along the skin of your conductor, so you are much better off increasing the total surface area of the skin by using multiple bundled conductors. You might need to liquid cool the cables to keep them at a manageable temperature. Also, the lithium battery pack will charge with something around 95% efficiency. That other 5% will become heat. Some in the cable, but probably a lot in the battery pack. So that's 50 KW of heat or around 170,000 BTUs/hr, which is about what you would need for a home furnace in a 3000 square foot home in a cold climate, for example. Still a car radiator can handle radiating heat at around 100 KW or more, but that's the radiator for an ICE. The ba ttery could sink that much heat. Estimating around 300 kg for the battery, that would be around 50 kJ per kg of battery. That's very roughly enough to raise the temperature of the battery by 50 degrees C applied instantaneously. Starting at room temperature, that's skin-meltingly hot, but obviously you would have the radiator going during charging and heat would radiate away from the battery, be conducted to the rest of the car, etc. So it would not heat up that much. Still, a design concern for a car meant to charge like this might include a beefier cooling system for the battery itself and a larger, more powerful radiator. Or the charging station itself could have some built in cooling features. A cooling unit that sits under the car, for example, or coolant hoses that are part of the charging connector that snap on and pump heat back to the charger, etc.
Of course, charging efficiency could be up by 98%, but best to design for a worst case scenario and battery heating could be a limiting factor for MegaWatt vehicle chargers. If the goal is to keep charging times consistently fast, it will need to be dealt with.
Re:Megawatt (Score:5, Informative)
For high voltage most of the current will move along the skin of your conductor, so you are much better off increasing the total surface area of the skin by using multiple bundled conductors
You're thinking of the skin effect [wikipedia.org] applies to conductors carrying high-frequency (not high-voltage) electricity.
DC circuits of whatever voltage are unaffected by the skin effect, and EV fast charging is essentially exclusively DC.
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Wrong.
For AC, current tends to move along the outside of the conductor. Skin effect is an AC thing, and skin depth is a function of frequency. It doesn't really effect DC.
Multiple bundles conductors only help with skin effect if they're arranged the right way. The effect is caused by the changing magnetic field generated the changing current flowing in wire. so spreads across adjacent conductors. See Litz wire.
All of this information is on wikipedia.
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so you are much better off increasing the total surface area of the skin by using multiple bundled conductors.
We don't need to guess, these things already exist and the standard for MCS (Megawatt Charging System) is due to be finalised this year after some 5 years of testing. The standard will almost certainly be 2 large single current carrying conductors, hollowed out and liquid cooled. Though it's not clear yet if liquid cooling will be required for 1MW charging, the standard will cover up to 4.5MW. As someone else pointed out you're thinking of skin effect which doesn't come into play here. Single conductors wil
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Some 350kW chargers used water cooled cables, but the current 400kW ones we have in Europe don't bother. The 400kW can't be sustained for very long so they don't need active cooling.
These batteries will have active cooling too. Presumably a heat pump. Given that charging will only take 5 minutes they will probably use the time between charges to cool the battery back down, for the most part.
It's interesting tech but I'm not sure how needed it is for most people. The Nio battery swap tech might be better any
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MWC is going to 1250 V * 3000 A.
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The truck chargers are either water cooled, or split so you use two cables carrying 150-175W each.
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It may be impressive, but I thought Kempower already had MegaWatt range vehicle chargers.
BYD (Score:3)
They make great cars too bad we'll never see them here. Not as long as the world is tribalist.
Re:BYD (Score:4, Interesting)
How are they able to be sold in Europe where they have more stringent requirements?
Re:BYD (Score:5, Interesting)
Bullshit. You can't drive a wank panzer in the UK because it doesn't meet safety requirements. https://www.forbes.com/sites/p... [forbes.com]
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Crash standards are not, they're lower
That is an american myth.
Especially for pedestrian protection they are much higher in Europe.
Re:BYD (Score:4, Informative)
It’s more than that. There *are no* pedestrian safety standards for cars in the US. None, nada. They don’t exist. Only vehicle occupant safety standards.
And you can self-certify for the latter in the US, which you can’t in Europe
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Has nothing to do with standards, this is all about protectionism. US car manufacturers are behind with EVs, so they had the laws changed to stop China from taking over their markets.
US is all about free markets as long as US companies dominate. Then it's all protectionism.
Even Tesla is lagging. They went on this AI tangent because they can't compete with battery tech.
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China is dumping. Those EVs won't stay $11k forever. Only long enough to destroy the competition.
Re:BYD (Score:4, Informative)
Your very clever argument is only slightly undermined by the fact that Chinese EVs are sold at much higher prices outside China than inside China (and yet are still on average cheaper than Western EVs). It’s really not difficult to understand: fierce competition, economies of scale, vertical integration, lower costs of labour and materials, and accumulation of knowhow, all mean Chinese OEMs can and must produce EVs at lower cost than Western OEMs.
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Tariffs, higher sale taxes, exchange rate buffering, and they are still building out their dealer and servicing networks in Europe too.
And yet they are still half the price and just as good.
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Yup. Look at the Xpeng Mona M03: https://wevee.uk/xpeng/mona-m0... [wevee.uk] and https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I think European OEMs can still compete, if they can get the core right and find a differentiator. For example, the Renault 5 has a reasonable core (although Renault should have been able to improve the range in the five years since the Zoe) and the design is clearly immensely appealing, at least to motoring journos (but I think probably lots of consumers, too). But it's going to be tough, no doubt.
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No you're committing the idiocy of listening to a Fox News talking head. Crash standards are not lower in Europe. They are higher general. However there are some key differences which for singular components make those components higher in the USA. For example front facing airbags in American cars are built to higher expected cushioning standards than European ones, but that's because Americans assume drivers are too stupid to use a seatbelt and need to prevent ejecting the driver through the windscreen whi
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By fulfilling all requirements.
Simple.
Not sure to which requirements you are actually referring, though.
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They sell well in Europe.
Not to say anything good about Chinese companies, but my biggest three fears about Chinese cars were location tracking, remote disabling without permission, and lack of parts. Well, looks like one doesn't have to go to the Far East for those fears to be realized. So, my hesitation for buying Chinese stuff has dropped.
Plus, the US, cars are way overpriced, and selection is garbage compared to every other world market (especially China, Europe or the UAE). Not everyone wants or can
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Including the UK tests (and I presume EU), which evaluate the victims of your traffic collision even if they're un-persons (i.e. not in a car). Something the Cyber truck fails, but BYD cars do not.
Re: BYD (Score:3)
Try "Opposed to dictatorships".
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Don’t fool yourself. Just because Americans buy the cheapest shit available doesn’t mean China is not capable of making a quality product. You think the Chinese military is making late USSR quality technology? If manufacturing came back to the USA people would still buy the cheapest low quality shit imaginable.
Rich Rebuilds was able to examine some Chinese EVs while they were in Alaska for testing. These cars are literally half the price of anything made here and nicer fit and finish. https://yo [youtu.be]
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> You think the Chinese military is making late USSR quality technology?
Judging by their military aircraft engines- yes.
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You are a few decades out of the loop.
The Chinese stealth fighters beat the F22 and F35 in every thinkable regard. Except for vertical take off an landing, of course.
And regarding the Russians: their jets are not bad. Just expensive and even more expensive in maintenance. Some of them have not even 100 flight hours until the whole engine needs to be replaced. That is basically a knock out criterium.
Re:Kablooey! (Score:5, Funny)
The Chinese stealth fighters beat the F22 and F35 in every thinkable regard.
America: Hogwash, we haven't seen any evidence that these stealth fighters even exist!
China: Precisely!
If you build the charger, battery tech will come? (Score:2)
My car is rates to 250kw of charging, but it quickly drops off as the batteries heat. I suppose they could put a lot more effort into heating the batteries before arriving at a charger and then a lot more effort into cooling the batteries while charging. That means extra cost, complication, and weight, lowering efficiency. Or they could just kill battery longevity. Or they could just be making ultra fast chargers that will be underutilized while waiting for battery tech to catch up.
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To me it seems most logical to put the cooling functions into the stationary charging station itself rather than into the car. It makes sense if it is only for the purpose of handling battery heating during charging. This could be from a cooling unit that cools from under the car, or potentially by hooking a coolant cable loop from the charger to the car.
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My car charging rate is around 10 to 20MW
I can fill up 600kWh in about 2 minutes
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But you can only use 150kWh of that 600, with the rest being spewed out as heat
Re: If you build the charger, battery tech will co (Score:2)
Still only takes 2 minutes
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Sure, but what matters is how much of your time is being wasted, engaged in the process of fuelling or charging.
I spent less than 2 minutes of my time on my last two charges, with zero inconvenience to me:
1. At the weekend, I drove from London to Durham, stopped at Markham Vale for dinner. I didn’t really need to charge, but thought I might as well. I parked the car in the same car park I’d have used if I wasn’t charging, plugged the car in and tapped my phone to start the charge (30 secon
Cable Should Be Interesting (Score:2)
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Probably pretty sizeable. CCS allows for up to 1000V in it's current deployed standard, so "only" 1000A (it's specced for 500).
I'd imagine that for these kind of charge rates there'd be some sort of active thermal sensing in the plug and socket housing, along with a current ramp at the beginning.
any tiny resistance in the connector will result in a fire in no time.
It's crazy. With the I^2 term, normal contact resistances are going to dissipate kilowatts. Though as I said they're already specced for 500A, wh
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Erm, this article is about the batteries, not the chargers BYD’s new *cars* will be capable of charging at this speed (470km in five minutes).
Load balancing (Score:2)
Would this needs lots of energy storage connected to the grid?
Where is my pocket calculator? (Score:1)
Give me a few minutes.
I have to redesign my solar installation.
Hm, gosh, on the first glance it seems I need a bigger house, with a bigger roof, too!
Battery lifespan (Score:5, Interesting)
You can only push so much current into a battery without destroying it and the higher the current, the faster they degrade.
Not to mention modern fast chargers are 1000v and at the limit of how much current you can push through their wires and connectors. To hit 1 megawatt you either need even higher voltages, or higher current- both of which require stouter cables and connectors. Not to mention the added safety risks that come with such systems.
Is it doable? Sure. Do I think current battery designs can handle those rates without rapid degradation? No.
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American complacency and smugness on full show. BYD have an excellent track record of delivering the tech they’ll say they deliver. And that tech has an excellent track record of reliability.
Stroking your chin and saying “aha, but what about degradation” as though keeping degradation to acceptable levels won’t have been one of the key engineering objectives for BYD, to which they’’ll have devoted really substantial effort, is just absurd.
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Higher current requires thicker conductors to limit resistive losses and heat buildup.
Higher voltage requires insulation to prevent sparks or leakage, but that's easy to handle and doesn't require a whole lot. The wiring in your house is usually rated to handle 600v, even though it will never see more than a 240v potential difference.
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Is it doable? Sure.
Not only is it doable, it's been proven years ago to the point where charging systems designed for 4.5MW are expected to be finalised with the update to IEC 61851-23 this year. It's a 1.5kV charging system by the way with actively cooled cables.
Do I think current battery designs can handle those rates without rapid degradation? No.
That kind of fear has been present since day one of EVs, and it has been proven unfounded. Engineers know what they are doing and know the problems batteries face and design around these problems. Part of the higher power MCS test include an active external cooling l
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Many commercial vehicles accept 1MW or more already, without serious degradation issues. They key is that they have massive batteries, or usually multiple batteries that are charged individually and multiple chargers to do it.
A 200kWh battery at 1MW would only be 5C, well within the safe zone for modern chemistries. BYD has been making batteries much larger than that for years, it's just a question of if they can fit one to a car. My guess would be that they probably can these days.
Meanwhile... (Score:2)
Watt per what? (Score:1)
Re: Watt per what? (Score:2)
But when are the Yurpeans converting to 100-second minutes and 100-minute hours?
Be consistent!
Re: Watt per what? (Score:2)
There is. A Watt is 1 Joule per second. Or if you take it all the way to base units, one kilogram-square-metre per second per second per second. That enough time units for you?
I plugged my car into ... (Score:2)
I plugged my car into the new megawatt charger and blew the whole power substation.
{^_-} Well, the lights dimmed to be sure.
Psychological vs real barriers (Score:3)
Feels to me that this tech is largely useful for addressing consumer perceptions of EV shortcomings. In practice, most EV drivers will rarely feel the need to charge this fast, at least in most of the world. What this battery tech enables is driving 400 miles, stopping for 5 minutes, and then driving another 250 miles. That’s 650 miles of driving — 10 hours — with only a five minute break. The vast majority of people, including in the US, do not drive like that, ever. For Brits, I am 100% confident that what people do on longer trips, is what I did when I drove from London to Durham at the weekend: they drive for 2.5 or 3 hours, stop for a piss and a bite to eat and a stretch and a rest, and then drive another 2 hours to their destination. Plugging in my car while I did this added a max of 1 minute of extra time — the chargers are in the car park, so it was just plug in, tap my phone and head off to the fish and chip shop (Chesters, it was pretty good: http://eatatchesters.com/ [eatatchesters.com]). A five minute charge would have been inconvenient, as I’d have felt obliged to go back to the car and unplug before I’d finished my dinner.
So I think of this kind of charging advance as being a halo product, designed to put people’s minds at ease and increase consumer acceptance.
Re: Psychological vs real barriers (Score:3)
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Hi Fluffernutter!
As always, I readily concede that your needs are very different and an EV won’t meet your use case for a long while yet. I don’t see that changing even with this 1MW charging, and even if you had 1MW chargers right across Canada. I mean, tbh, what would, in my view, serve you better, is the ability to drive 8 hours non-stop and then recharge during the 16 hours out of each 24 when you’re not driving, for that giant road trip across the country. Presumably you’re talk
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Vacuum insulation panels don't take a lot of room. By combining that with watercooling and block heater outlets it's technically possible to make cold weather EVs right now, when not driving the battery stays warm and while driving the battery stays warm, but the market isn't large enough to justify.
Meanwhile (Score:2)
What a waste of potential progress.
1,000 kW in a BYD ?!? (Score:2)