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[Richard230]

An article in the business section of my newspaper today says that the Chinese EV company BYD has developed a charging system that will fully charge their car batteries in only 5 to 8 minutes. The system will be introduced later this year.

[Stonewolf]

Is it battery swap ... again

[Richard230]

Is it battery swap ... again

The article gave very little information other than calling it a "charging system". I guess we will find out later this year after more information about their charging system is released. Right now it is more like a "teaser". Perhaps to keep potential buyers of other brands on the fence until the new BYD models arrive.

[Fran K]

BYD, China’s largest EV maker, said Monday that its flash-chargers can provide a full charge for its latest EVs within five to eight minutes, similar to the amount of time needed to fill a fuel tank. It plans to build more than 4,000 of the new charging stations across China.


The company also said that its flash-charging system relies on silicon carbide power chips with voltage levels of up to 1,500V that it developed on its own. Its Blade lithium-iron phosphate battery is perhaps the world’s safest and most efficient EV battery, with Tesla opting to use it in some of its EVs, industry analyst Michael Dunne said in a recent report.

[Grauteufel]

From what I am reading, what I see is 1000v (thats the drive system rate, the actual chargers are 1360v) 1000amp charging on 109kwh LFP batteries (10C-ish rate). Nothing earthshattering in terms of new technologies.

[Fran K]

Earth shattering, Tesla is not keeping up.

BYD’s “Super e-Platform” technology boasts a peak charging capacity of 1,000kW—double that of Tesla’s forthcoming V4 Superchargers, which will max out at 500kW upon their 2025 rollout.


We are in electric motorcycles where Livewire says only fast charge a quarter of the time.  I might guess the Tesla 500kw is for their 800 volt/48 volt Cyberturck, not sure about the semi project.

[Specter]

I think that Chevy / GM was planning an 800 volt platform for their ultium based vehicles too, mainly the trucks, but don't quote me on that.
THIS is why CCS1 and presumably standard CCS2 was boosted from 500v to 1000 volt to handle the higher voltages we are now seeing.

be interesting to see how the batteries hold out with that high of a charge rate. if they are using the phosphate tech then they will of course be MUCH safer, and being a vehicle like a car / truck, they have more room to hide bigger battery banks where it won't be as noticeable / performance harming as it would be on...  say... a motorcycle.

Aaron

[Grauteufel]

Its not earth shattering as there have been plenty of 800v cars/chargers for 7 years now (I believe Porsche/VW started in 2018), with lucid up around the 900 odd volt. Tesla has been far from cutting edge for ages

[princec]

I've had 350kW charging for a few years in the Ionic... The only thing is ... there are about 6 chargers in the country that can output 350kW. I think this race to fast-charge more fasterer than ever before is past the point of diminishing returns in terms of actual use-cases and into the realms of "pointlessly difficult engineering and expense for a scenario only the most impatient and entitled user cares about"

Cas

[Stonewolf]

We are in electric motorcycles where Livewire says only fast charge a quarter of the time.

The limiting factor for motorbikes is cooling. Charging is the highest thermal load on the battery and Energica and Livewire have basicly set it as fast as is practicable without active cooling. Higher charge rates and lower wear rates due to rapid charging are only really possible with active cooling but active cooling is bulky and heavy for bikes that are already facing packaging struggles with weight and volume of battery packs. We'll get some benefits from new chemistry and cell structure but until we can package active cooling bikes will always face thermal issues.

[princec]

Once upon a time liquid cooling engines was thought to be some sort of challenge but it turned out that it was a better idea overall than passive cooling even with the added weight* and complexity. I'm sure they'll come to the same conclusion with batteries.

Cas

* Though it turns out that for a given amount of power out of an engine, because you can make a liquid cooled engine smaller and rev faster, you get the same amount of power from the same weight of a larger air-cooled design...

[Stonewolf]

Once upon a time liquid cooling engines was thought to be some sort of challenge but it turned out that it was a better idea overall than passive cooling even with the added weight* and complexity. I'm sure they'll come to the same conclusion with batteries.

It's not about drawing the conclusion, it's basicly known best practice in EV engineering at this point.

The issue is the industry is already struggling to fit enough capacity within its mass, volume, and price budgets for a given bike without it. Legacy manufacturers are utterly obsessed with weight for instance and have backed away when they found that weight savings don't really translate to range increases. Energica went the opposite route and said "ok, it weighs as much as it needs to" and when you look at their 21.5kWh battery in order to get all that in the same form factor as the smaller pack they had to really pack the cells in there at the expense of thermal performance. Good thermals isn't just about weight, you also have to have the cells in contact with a transfer medium, plumbing to get the fluid around, a radiator to transfer the heat to the air (which, counterintuitively, requires more area per kW of cooling than on an ICE), a pump or even a heat pump to actually make the system work. All that stuff has to go somewhere, the battery box has to be bigger for the same capacity or less capacity for the same volume.

You then face the issue that the weight and volume of active cooling helps with charging and longevity - things that don't matter when you're riding the bike, at the expense of bulk & weight OR range - things that do matter when you're riding the bike. This means that it's really not the same tradeoff as liquid cooling an engine.

Say you did a 1:1 cell replacement on an Eva Ribelle for solid state cells, you can have a passive cooled 30.5kWh battery OR an active cooled 21.5kWh battery. I know which one probably a lot of the folks on this forum would choose but it's the passive cooled high capacity one that's going to make waves, get your bike in the headlines, and pull in the sales.

[princec]

I dunno... I think 4C charging would be infinitely preferable to a few more kWh. That's all that interests me at this point. If the next Zero came with a slightly smaller battery capacity but quadruple the charging rate I'd buy it over anything else. Charging rate is the limiting factor in the difficult use-case for electric bikes - which is road tours. Day-to-day, few people use more than 5-6kWh.

Cas

[Specter]

Well, if you could charge your battery DC to DC  ie CCS!  CCS2 then yes faster charging is nicer BUT if you are using AC to charge it, ie NOT putting dc directly in, then that faster charge means more components on YOUR end, bigger, more room needed for heat sinks etc etc, more weight.  We can give you double the charge rate, but it means basically cramming a second charger at what? 30 lbs on your bike, then there's the additional heat being put out in that space with the chargers, that might at that point, become problematic.  A simple fan on the charger might let them do it in the same space, but now you have a water / fod intrusion space.  Yes those fucking ants WILL find their way into your nice cozy warm charger and OOH LOOK,  YUMMY wires to chew the insulation off....

Aaron

[Grauteufel]

Ha, I have had so many chargers full of ants. I'm told they're not after the insulation, rather the thermal paste on the heatpipes/sinks