China is dominating the electric vehicle market globally, accounting for more than 70 percent of global manufacturing in 2024, according to the International Energy Agency. Its E.V. makers have pulled ahead of U.S. car companies on both price and technology.
Case in point: the five-minute charger.
This past spring, two major Chinese companies announced breakthroughs in battery technology that will enable electric vehicles to drive hundreds of miles on a five-minute charge. After traveling to China to test drive new fast-charging cars sold by BYD, Patrick George, the editor in chief of InsideEVs, said Chinese models were “pretty much a generation or two ahead of the rest of the world.”
It’s easy to imagine how five-minute charging might transform U.S. drivers’ attitudes toward electric vehicles. Widely available power sources and a charge time roughly the same length as a stop to fill up a gas tank would go a long way to alleviate the range anxiety many cite as a hurdle to going electric.
But car buyers in the U.S. aren’t likely to get access to five-minute charging any time soon, analysts say. Here’s why.
The cars
BYD’s fast-charging system depends on two things: a vehicle capable of charging quickly, and a charger that can deliver power from the grid to match.
BYD, which is now the world’s largest producer of electric vehicles, has developed a battery that has a peak charging capacity of 1,000 kilowatts, also known as a megawatt. This peak rate can add enough charge in five minutes to drive for about 250 miles. Most E.V.s on the market in the U.S. can charge at peak rates of 400 kilowatts or less.
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The post Why Can’t the U.S. Build 5-Minute E.V. Chargers? appeared first on New York Times.
