Two weeks after BYD announced its 1 MW charger, Zeekr said it would launch a 1.2 MW charger, coinciding with Huawei's announcement of a 1.5 MW charger.
After BYD announced its new 1,000 kW (1 MW) car charger, fellow Chinese automaker Zeekr said it would launch a 1.2 MW charger at the Shanghai Auto Show in late April.
Zeekr Group vice president Zhao Yuhui revealed the 1.2 MW supercharger at the China 100 Electric Vehicle Forum, which took place from March 28 to 30. The supercharger station will have 10 plugs, each capable of delivering 1.2 MW of power.
Zeekr has focused heavily on charging infrastructure. Over the past three years, it has upgraded its charging stations from 360 kW to 600 kW and then to 800 kW. Zeekr operates 826 charging stations with 4,007 chargers in China.
"We will lead the charging industry into the era of 1 MW super-fast charging," Zhao said. The company plans to have 10,000 chargers in China by 2026.
Zeekr is not the only company pushing faster than 1 MW charging. In early March, BYD announced a 1 MW charger capable of adding 2 kilometers per second, or 400 kilometers in 5 minutes. Didi also has a 1 MW charger.
Like Zeekr, Huawei will launch its super-fast chargers in late April. But Huawei's chargers will have the highest capacity, 1.5 MW. The supercharger can charge 20 kWh per minute and can fully charge a vehicle in 15 minutes, according to the company.
But unlike Zeekr and BYD's superchargers, which are aimed at cars, Huawei's 1.5 MW charger is aimed at heavy-duty trucks. "For heavy-duty trucks to be electrified, the charging time must be less than 30 minutes," the company said.
However, BYD is the earliest adopter, with 1 MW charging stations set to launch in China in early April, with the first 500 chargers. BYD's system can help electric vehicles travel 400 km after 5 minutes of charging. The car can charge from 7% to 50% in just 4.5 minutes.
Fast to super-fast charging is the obsession of the electric vehicle manufacturing industry, aiming to bring the charging time of this type of vehicle closer to the refueling time of an internal combustion engine vehicle. However, unlike gasoline vehicles, where the faster the tap flows, the faster the tank fills up, the faster the electric vehicle charges, the more likely it is to reduce battery life. Therefore, in addition to improving charging capacity, car manufacturers must also improve battery quality to receive high current in a short time without quickly degrading the battery.
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