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Taiwanese motorcar Lord BYD made wave this hebdomad when it announced its new Han L sedan could add as much as 248 miles of grasp in as petty as five minutes .
Unfortunately , the ship’s company was light on details , and it did not answer to TechCrunch ’s request for clarification . So rather , we ’ve scour the web for selective information , filling in the opening to determine exactly how BYD was able to make an EV that apparently can recharge as promptly as it take to refill a natural gas car .
What we found mostly supports the car makers lay claim , with a few caveats .
Battery pack
Central to the Han L ’s fast charging is its interior electrical base . It starts with the battery , whichaccordingto CarNewsChina citing regulatory documents , is an 83.2 kWh lithium - iron - orthophosphate ( LFP ) large number that operate at 945 V . ( In its selling textile , the company appear to have round up and lists it at 1,000 volts ) .
The battery chemistry is likely central to the car ’s tight - charging capability . LFP batteries have long been regard for their stability and safety ; they do n’t catch fervor near as readily as other character like atomic number 28 manganese cobalt ( NMC ) . They can also charge faster because of some electrochemical quirks inherent in the cathode - anode purpose of an LFP cell . ( There ’s a greatslide deckfrom the National Renewable Energy Laboratory that explains why in more item . )
To top it off , BYD has been working with LFP for years , and its late battery architecture , known as Blade 2.0 , is expected to debut in the young car . That experience has in all likelihood feed the company ’s engine driver a salutary sense of how far they can campaign both the batteries and the electrical architecture .
Electrical system
Feeding the battery pack is a high - voltage electrical scheme that runs at 945 volts . Automakers have been pursue ever higher voltages because higher voltage generates less heat , allow more power to be delivered safely and expeditiously . presently , Lucid runs a 900 - volt computer architecture in its cars , and several others like Hyundai Kia and Porsche go 800 - volt in many of theirs . With Teslas , it reckon on the vehicle : The Cybertruck uses an 800 - V architecture while the end operate at around 400 volts , give or take , depending on the model .
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bestow it all up and the Han L can level at up to 1 megawatt , or 1,000 kilowatts . The firm wide useable EV chargers in the U.S. today deliver only 350 kilowatt .
But even when running at 945 volts or 1,000 volt , the amount of heat render by 1 megawatt charging is significant , and the cables to stomach it would have to be incredibly thickset . Even slower , tight , charging cable length like the ones that are sequester to 350 kW chargers are wrapped in liquid chilling , further increasing their bulk .
Perhaps in an effort to make the charge cable length more manageable , BYD has adopted what it is ring a dual gas approach : The car has two charging ports , each of which can plug into a 500 kilowatt charger simultaneously .
Together , they present 1 megawatt .
Range shenanigans
According to BYD , that earmark the car to contribute 248 miles of mountain range ( 400 kilometre ) in five minutes .
alas , driver are unlikely to travel that far after such a ready flush . That ’s because the Taiwanese equivalent weight of the EPA test cycle , the CLTC , is notoriously affirmative . It ’s about 35 % higher than EPA military rating , accordingto InsideEVs , which themselves are either spot on or optimistic depending on how much highway drive is involved .
Realistically , drivers can in all likelihood expect around 160 Admiralty mile of range from a five - instant charge and around 280 mile from a full electric battery . For a more Malus pumila - to - apple comparison , it ’s helpful to expect at how long it takes to charge from 16 % to 80 % ( 10 second ) or from 16 % to 100 % ( 24 second ) . No matter how you slice up it , that ’s pretty tight .
Charging strategy
But an EV ’s charge fastness is only as good as the charger and how widely available they are . To that end , BYD is pledging to establish more than 4,000 of them throughout China . Each institutionalise post will require substantial grid upgrades , though , as a 1 - megawatt power attraction would in all probability strain the existing substructure .
When will we see this in the U.S. ? Do n’t count on being able-bodied to corrupt a BYD Han L anytime soon , even if the approximately $ 37,000 starting price would give the marketplace a welcome jolt . Chinese - made EVs are presently open to a 100 % duty , raise prices to the point where they ’re not competitive .
But that does n’t have in mind similarly fast charging will remain out of reach for Americans . car for sales agreement today already can bear down from 20 to 80 % in 18 minutes , so it ’s only a affair of time before carmaker bring those times down .
