BYD says new fast-charging system could be as quick as filling up a tank
177 comments
·March 18, 2025feverzsj
grumpy-de-sre
Man, that's fascinating, full study here [1].
I wonder how the Lithium is entering the food chain? Given they've tested drinking water, food, and air.
Dust from processing? occupational exposure? unscrupulous recycling operations? but Lithium isn't a heavy metal so exposure would have to be ongoing.
Definitely need to test some additional cities and try and understand what's going on here. While concerning these blood levels are at 3% of the doses typically studied in psychiatric conditions. There's some potential public health benefits to low level lithium exposure actually [2] but at the same time you don't want to be unintentionally exposing pregnant folks.
quacksilver
Cheap and recycled cookware or cooking oil would be up there on the list of interesting things to check imho
- https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cml2kr9wkdzo
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutter_oil
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41370-024-00686-7
Anywhere in the supply chain to a streetfood stall, or mom and pop restaurant or cornershop/bodega equivalent could have substitutions made that other people in the chain may not notice
grumpy-de-sre
Do wonder if it could be unintentionally being alloyed into recycled aluminium etc. Though I'm not sure if that's more likely than upstream routes.
Good old scientific mystery.
RustySpottedCat
I entirely fail to see how a government related pollution problem is related to a potential EV charging breakthrough by a private company.
chneu
It's xenophobia. Whenever Chinese anything is brought up someone has to bring up something unrelated to show how horrible china is.
Same thing happens with pollution per capita or any number of environmental metrics. People jump through insane mental hoops to paint China as far worse than the USA.
darthrupert
I think holding China to a greater standard than USA shows respect rather than disrespect for China.
senectus1
yeah, there are a crap ton of lithium based devices made in china... my biggest suspect for that is the vape market.
its already a blackmarket industry.. i bet they dont care much about where how the batteries are made.
belter
Has nothing to do with it but the US is learning...
"Trump administration moves to dismantle EPA’s science office" - https://www.ehn.org/trump-administration-moves-to-dismantle-...
addicted
Where’s the evidence that the cause is “clean energy”?
defrost
It didn't appear from nowhere via by Monkey Magic, that much is certain.
The source, then, is either
* raw lithium rich brines,
* Spodumene ore,
* waste from brine processing, OR waste from spodumene processing, (to create industrial scale supplies of industry usable lithium)
* waste from using lithium in industry to create (say) batteries.
Working through that list, lithium rich brines are largely in Chile and in some parts of China that are not Beijing, spodumene ore comes largely from Australia and parts of China that are not Beijing.
I'm not aware of, but this doesn't rule it out, brine or spodumene processing in the immediate vicinity of Beijing (it's quite likely there is some spodumene processing in that area) .. there definitely is large scale industry use of end product lithium in Beijing specifically to produce batteries.
The majority of lithium usage is related to "clean energy" .. or even just common battery use for electronics, so it's easily the most probable source of lithium turning up in an urban area such as Beijing.
Addendum: As grumpy-de-sre correctly points out below, the end of use disposal of lithium batteries in Beijing also deserves attention as a source.
The exact 'how' is as yet unknown .. it'll likely be tracked down and dealt with given the papers being published.
This will be of great interest to Texas a decade or so from now, the critical materials act and other recent activities have seen ground broken on lithium and rare earth concentrate processing plants on US soil in Texas (and elsewhere), the recent relaxing of EPA guidelines and reduction in oversight will likely lead to similar health issues appearing in due course.
Do you have any suggestions for where else it might come from?
grumpy-de-sre
Improper disposal of used batteries (eg. burning them) is another potential exposure route.
dudeinjapan
[dead]
highwaylights
I’m admittedly really out of the loop on battery tech developments but I was hopeful the industry was slowly steering towards iron/sodium batteries to replace lithium for reasons of cost and pollution. Did that hit a roadblock or is it just still very early stage?
null
nujabe
China supposedly made a breakthrough in battery technology, what does that have to do with lithium pollution in China? You sound bitter about China’s progress.
Arch-TK
When will these cars have a breakthrough in terms of UI and privacy (let's ignore the cost for a moment).
I don't want to spend a shitload of money on an iPhone with wheels which doesn't even come with all the privacy promises apple makes and which is full of dark patterns, subscription models, and proprietary interfaces (talking about apple carplay, android auto, feature allowing you to use spotify, etc. The mere fact the car has these makes me not want to buy it, even though I would never use them. Paying money to have a hardcoded e.g. spotify client in my car is encouraging exactly the wrong design practices.).
bbatha
This basically describes Tesla only. Drive a different brand and you get a very similar experience to a gas powered car. Unfortunately a terrible track record on privacy is par for the course in all vehicles in 2025.
Am4TIfIsER0ppos
Never. The government wants you to drive "an iPhone with wheels" because it comes with a convenient spying device. Means they don't need to put up a network of cameras to track you (some do anyway). It probably also bundles a remote kill switch just in case you offend some bureaucrat or just if you expend all your future energy ration. The suggestion to remove the antenna will probably make it fail a government "safety" inspection.
timeon
This is is not just problem for the owners but anyone else. All those cameras are privacy problem in general (sometimes used also with parked cars - like in case of Tesla).
mavhc
Buy a cheap EV. Remove the antenna, privacy problem solved. Use your phone for satnav and streaming audio via bluetooth. Same as with a TV, you get it cheaper because they're expecting you to subscribe, so you don't and profit.
_heimdall
Is that feasible?
I looked into removing OnStar in a first gen Chevy Volt but from what I found its so deeply integrated into the entertainment system that many things just can't work without it.
OrderlyTiamat
Do you know of someone who has successfully done this?
internet_points
I'd prefer standardized, swappable batteries. Imagine driving up to a gas^Wbattery station, you place your car at a certain spot and your old battery drops out and a new one is inserted and off you go, not even having to leave the car. The old battery is charged slowly, cheaply and safely, while you're on the road again 5 minutes before that one guy still filling diesel.
r00fus
Nio does this (only for their cars tho) - apparently takes 3m to do a battery swap. And apparently it's getting to the point where it's close to profitability.
ralferoo
Maybe, but that only really works if you have a battery leasing concept - like e.g. Renault Zoe. Otherwise, you're swapping something you "own" with something that may be of inferior quality.
Would you really feel happy having bought a brand new car to find the most expensive component had been replaced with an 8 year old battery just from "filling it up"? What if the previous "owner" had just grounded the car and smashed the battery back into a speed bump or a large stone?
Imagine a damaged battery pack caused a fire and destroyed your car... Who would be liable? You? The garage that you last swapped the battery at (and would you even remember where that was)? The previous renter who may had damaged it? The renter who damaged it 2 weeks ago leading to its failure now? The manufacturer for designing in the risk? Are we going to need to pay to staff 24/7 at every battery swap location to inspect the incoming batteries?
Then there are the safety risks of having a high voltage connector that has to undergo potentially 10,000 cycles during its lifetime. Any slight misalignment will start to cause arcing and contact degradation, increased resistance and higher risk of fires. I realise that this same argument can be made to high speed charging ports as well, but the connector on the car would have to withstand significantly more vibration.
Additionally, the battery is one of the heaviest parts of an EV, so there's a challenge of making something that's easy to remove whilst remaining firmly secure the rest of the time. Such a thing is best supported from underneath, but having top or side loaded batteries would likely cause significant issues with weight distribution. Finally, modern EVs also have contoured batteries to fill the available space in the car, whereas swappable batteries are likely to need to be designed to be interchangeable between models and manufacturers.
To me, I'd see it as having too many downsides. High current charging can be done safely if systems are designed well, as well as still retaining the ability to fall back to slow trickle overnight charging which will probably remain the preferred option for most. We already have a standardised plug that can support this, the increased current can be negotiated over the control lines just as is currently done.
woile
I think Taiwan is like this, but with ev scooters. There are big battery walls, and you take and swap. I think it's fantastic for a town.
ralferoo
There are guys who ride around swapping the batteries in public rental bikes too - they send an alert when the batteries are low and a guy just drives around swapping ones near his current location.
The batteries are small compared to what you'd need for a car - they're maybe slightly larger than a standard lead-acid battery.
diggan
Silence (https://www.silenceuk.com/) has scooters and "microcars" with swappable batteries. If I remember correctly, their batteries might have wheels as well so they're easier to move around, since they weight a bit.
grumpy-de-sre
All over mainland china as well, works great for small vehicles like mopeds etc (because the battery is light enough to be swapped by an individual person without tools). Probably helps reduce fire risk as well (because people aren't charging themselves indoors).
codewench
Gogogo - very popular, and pretty extensive coverage [0]. The only problem is the scooters themselves are so quiet they sneak up behind you on the street.
[0] www.gogoro.com/gogoro-network
TheAlchemist
Wow, I've just googled it and seen a video about it - pretty amazing !
porphyra
Isn't that very common with NIO cars etc? They are also very popular with many other brands, especially for rideshare cars.
https://cnevpost.com/2025/03/04/nio-97800-daily-battery-swap...
gilbetron
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNZy603as5w
They are out there, of course, the standardization part isn't there.
bryanlarsen
This concept makes even more sense for trucks than it does for cars. The batteries are larger, destinations are likely to have appropriate infrastructure, routes are more uniform.
xbmcuser
Its already a thing with Nio. Whats more they also allow you to upgrade your battery to higher capacity for long trip ie your normal car battery is 60Kwh but you swap with a 105Kwh for a long trip.
poisonborz
Sure I'd like to swap out a critical part of my car that is also like 60% of it's value to some random part I get in exchange at a highway station!
chadconway
Awesome to see BYD continue to innovate! I wish Tesla continued to push on powertrain improvements like this rather than making a triangle shaped truck.
omarforgotpwd
the triangle truck supports 500 kw charging
michpoch
With a much larger battery. Double the battery and voilà you can charge it at twice the speed.
porphyra
People love to hate on the Cybertruck for political reasons but it's literally one of the most innovative vehicles of our time.
surgical_fire
Perhaps if it innovates in how shitty a car can be. Sort of an example that innovation for innovation's sake is not always desirable.
michpoch
Things were wildly overpromised. The innovation that was delivered (e.g. steer by wire) gives little advantage for customers.
porphyra
Steer by wire is a huge advantage and the nimble handling is one of the most beloved things about the vehicle among owners.
blinky81
Genuinely, what innovations did the Cybertruck bring?
darthrupert
Since you claim an extraordinary thing without evidence...
No. It's not.
eecc
The triangle shaped truck was used as a testbed for several innovations: 4 wheel drive (not just for parking gimmicks), size increase of gigapressed parts, first deployment of the 4680 dry process batteries, 48V for the non-traction electrical systems, Ethernet based networking for systems interconnect.
It’s literally a concept car in production…
MegaButts
There's a reason most concept cars don't make it to production.
lupusreal
What are the reasons that truck shouldn't have entered production? I can think of a few myself (pedestrian safety, ugly, not bulletproof and shouldn't even ostensibly be, etc) but none of these reasons seem to be related to the actual technical innovations which are apparently in the truck. So where is the relevance?
Hamuko
Half of these don't really sound like innovations as much as they're firsts for Tesla themselves. 48 V systems and four-wheel steering (and drive) are not really innovative at this point.
kelseydh
People in America and Canada where there is a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs don't appreciate what they are missing out on.
For ~$60k you can buy vehicles like the Li Auto L9 that are nicer than a brand new Rolls Royce. The value for price you get blows other manufacturers out of the water.
gloxkiqcza
It’s a nice car but it’s nowhere near as nice as Rolls Royce. You’re not doing your argument any favors by exaggerating this much.
However, I agree that Chinese EVs are a serious competition to other EVs.
kelseydh
Fair, a more apt comparison is the Hongqi E-HS9: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4d_-W23mgc
But on a driver experience feature-by-feature comparison the Li-L9 actually competes with a Rolls Royce:
- flat vertical reclinable seats
- 9 point massage chairs
- Heads up display
- advanced self-driving with LIDAR
- chamber to heat and cool food
- OLED back passenger screens with gesture control
- voice control of the vehicle
- quiet closing doors
michpoch
This is maybe comparable to BMW series 7 or MB s class.
RR is about building each car for the given customer. There’s almost no limit to what you can wish.
anshumankmr
I don't think anything in life is better than sitting in a Rolls Royce, apart from say having a kid (but even that's debatable lol)
baoluofu
When I was in China last summer, every taxi I used was an electric car. By far, the worst of these was a Tesla Model 3. You can buy serious luxury vehicles for really very little money compared to western manufacturers. Not electric car specific, but for me, the most impressive thing is that the mapping apps are all synchronised with the traffic light systems.
ThatMedicIsASpy
There are zero buttons on the center console. That car would never be considered as an option for me.
pcdoodle
And will probably look like trash in 5 years due to the headliner drooping, fabric fraying, electronics crapping out, etc.
Also good luck getting any replacement parts down the road wherever you live.
msy
You sound like Americans talking about Japanese cars 30 years ago.
pcdoodle
Japan makes nice things though. Also the corolla is 60 years old and still a fantastic car.
kelseydh
Sorry but this is cope. Why do you assume the build quality must be disastrously bad? In Australia where there is no tariff on Chinese EV's there are many Chinese vehicles on the road now -- this logically suggests an expansion of repair support will trickle into Australia also.
China is not just beating the U.S. on price, they are beating their manufacturers on quality and features. I'm not suggesting Toyota levels of reliability yet, but Tesla doesn't have a track record of reliability either. These Chinese EV's are easily as good as a Tesla, and better given advanced features like LIDAR that Elon cut from Tesla's.
pcdoodle
You're living on another planet if you think you can maintain one of these for more than 5 years. Sure, you can buy the rubber but that's about it.
bob1029
> peak charging speeds of 1,000 kilowatts (kW)
Obvious safety concerns aside, I really worry that we are losing perspective on what the grid is capable of and the possibility that distributed technology won't get us to the ideal outcome fast enough.
The power plant nearest to me could only handle ~1000 instances of this kind of charging before it is completely saturated. The transmission (transformer) infrastructure is the biggest bottleneck. Even if Entergy built several additional gigawatts of capacity on their existing site, they'd have no way to deliver it. Tesla would have to install supercharging stations in their switch yard and figure out how to operate at much higher supply voltages.
bryanlarsen
This will have very little impact on the grid. If you can charge twice as fast you need half as many chargers for the same capacity, resulting in the same load at 100% utilization.
The batteries are the same size that they were previously, so the kWh pulled from the grid doesn't change.
bob1029
I don't think we can look at it on an average basis when each vehicle is pulling a megawatt, regardless of how long they are doing it for.
Industrial users with electric arc furnaces and other massive loads need special, ongoing arrangements with the utility to operate safely on the grid. It would only take 200~300 of these high speed chargers to equate to the demand of the largest EAFs on earth.
bryanlarsen
That's enough to support hundreds of thousands of cars.
proaralyst
Well, the chargers won't be pulling 1MW continuously, so you can smooth this out by installing batteries with the chargers. The grid demand becomes a more constant trickle into the batteries co-located with the charger
JumpCrisscross
No need for batteries when supercapacitors will do.
aitchnyu
Which supercapacitors are sold and have car-scale energy?
tgv
So you might have to wait an hour for your 5 minute charging time? Doesn't sound like a killer feature.
m4rtink
If this works, you can use the same tech for distributed grid ballancing batteries.
voidUpdate
1MW charging? wow, that's a lot. I hope they have a suitable explosion containment pie dish in case something shorts
senectus1
Fortescue has 6MW fast charging for their mining trucks...
looofooo0
With a 1900kwh battery, that is not even 4C.
kelseydh
Ok Edison, we get it!
reitanuki
'as quick as filling up a tank' is a bit exaggerated (5 min for 250 miles) but I guess it's impressive that it's getting to the same order of magnitude.
heisenbit
5 min charging would be a game changer as it reduces the need for larger batteries which lowers cost and weight again impacting cost.
poisonborz
Pipe dreams, charging with extreme wattage is not where the research should be concentrated at.
> peak charging speeds of 1,000 kilowatts (kW)
Who will deliver this in the next decades at scale? In western EU you find 150W poles at most, and that's like 10 stations/120km.
SapporoChris
It's designed for China by China, the western EU limitations are not applicable. As to who will deliver this in the next decades at scale? I can only speculate: China.
sandos
According to chargefinder there are hundreds, if not thousands of chargers all over Western EU with 350kW charing at least!
poisonborz
Even 350kw (by far the newest batch) is a fraction of what would be needed here.
Regardless, those station numbers are also misleading. As I wrote such chargers are most often in islands of 10-20 poles so you can divide that number. Plus 350kw is almost always shared per two stations - meaning you get half if both sides of the charger is occupied.
scarab92
My guess is that charging stations will buffer the power in high discharge capacity battery banks rather than pulling it directly from the grid in real time.
Don’t many Tesla supercharger sites already do that?
On batteries, my understanding is that we’ve been able to charge at these rates for quite a while now, but doing so results in a lot of heat which reduces cycle life.
Have BYD solved that limiting issue?
ZeroGravitas
The comments here are more interesting than the article.
Often on HN that statement would mean that someone with relevant technical experience has commented, but not this time.
Instead the comments on a fairly mundane incremental improvement in technology are full of concern trolling, whataboutism, nitpicking and cope.
This suggests to me that people are starting to absorb the information that China is ahead in this area of tech and they are emotionally uncomfortable with that reality.
numpad0
Battery charging/discharging speed is limited not by capacity but by current relative to capacity. Li-ion batteries can generally be recharged in constant current mode without significant degrading up to "4C" - 4x its mAh rating, above a low threshold below which it's not yet safe to charge at full speed, and below ~80% where it's no longer safe to charge with constant current but charging has to switch to low current constant voltage mode.
Cutting down charging time to below 1/4th standard Earth hours require material science breakthroughs(hard). While this system might be useful for charging a 4MWh train packs, or a 1MWh semi pack with a not insignificant degradation penalty, this does not accelerate charging for most EV users even if this was to be deployed widely.
seedless-sensat
I think you jumped to the wrong conclusion. Another news source suggests proper groundbreaking 10C charging:for a standard EV
> the BYD’s pile supports the 10C charging. It can charge 400 km in 5 minutes. It is two kilometers in one second! During the live test, this station reached the 1 MW level of power in 10 seconds (while charging Han L EV and Tang L EV). The car’s charging time from 7% to 50% was just 4.5 minutes.
ptero
A nitpick on the math you cite: 400km in 5 min (300 sec) is not 2 km per sec.
The bigger open question is what is the degradation penalty for 10C charging. This doesn't matter for a demonstrator but is critical for consumer use.
trq01758
Forget 4C, these have new 10C lithium iron phosphate batteries.
bmicraft
That's the thing, the manufacturer can rate the cells at any C they want. The real question isn't whether these are "rated" for 10C, but how much degregation these will show after 1000 cycles at 10C. Cooling systems will also play into this: If we assume 5% charging losses that's 50kW that will need to be dissipated while charging for the cells not to heat up - no small feat even if the losses are lower.
Meanwhile, there is unidentified source of lithium pollution in Beijing, causing 20 times higher concentrations among pregnant women and newborns[0]. Guess everything has its cost, even for clean energy.
[0]: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3301053/unus...