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CATL's new LFP battery can charge from 10 to 98% in less than 7 minutes

arstechnica.com

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Re: CATL's new LFP battery can charge from 10 to 98% in less than 7 minutes

#51

Post by horsawlarway »

0xfaded wrote: post #46
newyankee wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a well designed urban environment where cars have space for 2-3 modular batteries with swapping capabilities, I see no reason why taxis etc. need to carry battery payload > 150 km of range needed for local use, which would mean better fuel efficiency as well. Battery swapping done right is integral to this

Sorry, but I giggled at this. A well designed urban environment would have no cars.

Frankly - I agree with this take.

If anything - my opinion at this point is that cars were a mistake in vehicle sizing caused by internal combustion engines.

For the vast, vast majority of ubran transit, something akin to a bike in size seems to make more sense.

We see this already in urban regions in India/Asia where scooters are the predominate transportation method, and I think even traditional scooters are heavy enough to be problematic.

But a class 2 ebike (so throttle with no need to pedal) can weigh as little as 40lbs (20kg), and go 30 miles at 20mph.

It's insane that we're not designing urban transit for bikes at this point. Much better density, much safer, much easier to store and park, much cheaper to operate and license.

Re: CATL's new LFP battery can charge from 10 to 98% in less than 7 minutes

#52

Post by hangonhn »

WarmWash wrote: post #45
chris_va wrote: post #43

The poor grid. The US added basically 0% extra transmission capacity last year. ... Now your local charging station will require a nuclear plant to keep up with ~1MW per car.

The whole fast charge thing is mostly marketing to convert people from "gas car mindset" into getting an EV. The reality of the situation is that most people who buy an EV will use fast charging only a few times a year. The majority will be charging overnight to recuperate their daily use, which amounts to drawing What would be a strain though is large ultra fast charging stations along major travel corridors. But I'…

Wait. You're missing something.

Charging was what stopped me from getting an EV when I was a renter. In a world where I can recharge in 7 to 10 minutes, it becomes a lot more feasible for a renter to get an EV without at home charging capabilities. A renter can just pull up to a recharging station. Wait 7 to 10 minutes or (maybe 5 if they don't mind a half charge) and be off.

Re: CATL's new LFP battery can charge from 10 to 98% in less than 7 minutes

#53

Post by adrian_b »

sandworm101 wrote: post #8

> have a minute to plug in? Still sufficient to get from 10 to 35 percent state of charge. Scaling that to something the size of an EV pack will require one massive cable/connector. Call it 5kw/h in 1/60 hours, thats 3000kw, at 700v thats still roughly 4000 amps. (Please correct my head math.) Charging one car could suck up more power than an entire neighbourhood. Say four or five chargers operating at once ... every…

Like others have pointed, you have made a mistake in your computation. The currents that are required are only of hundreds of amps and the latest chargers can provide up to 1000 A.

Also like others have said, it does not matter how fast you charge a car, the total energy consumption is the same, so fast chargers do not require changes in the power supply of a charging station.

The fast chargers that enable this full charging in a few minutes have their own internal batteries, to enable them to pull only the average power from the electrical grid, not the peak power.

The new fast chargers that can achieve the times reported in TFA use a somewhat higher voltage than the older chargers, of 1000 V, to reduce the current.

Re: CATL's new LFP battery can charge from 10 to 98% in less than 7 minutes

#54

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

adrian_b wrote: post #49
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #5

Neither article mentions what specs - voltage and kW - are used when doing this very fast charging. Does anyone know? Assuming it's not just the current high-end spec of 800v? It matters because higher current requires heavier equipment to generate it and heavier cables too.

The other company that makes batteries that charge this fast, BYD, also makes appropriate chargers, which use a somewhat higher voltage, of 1000 V. Those chargers can provide up to 1000 A.

Yes, I am aware that BYD has demonstrated a 1000 kW charging system. In their case it's literally the headline (1) or subheading in other articles (2)

Which is very much in contrast with this article not mentioning these numbers at all. It's odd.

Are you saying that you know that this CATL charger has the same specs despite this? That was my question, really.

1) "BYD Unveils ... Megawatt Flash Charging " https://www.byd.com/en/news-list/BYD-Unveils-Super-e-Platfor...

"BYD's 1st 1,000-kW ultrafast" https://cnevpost.com/2025/03/26/byd-1st-1000-kw-charging-sta...

2) Subhead: "BYD unveils platform with charging power of 1,000 kW" https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/18/byd-ev-fa...

Re: CATL's new LFP battery can charge from 10 to 98% in less than 7 minutes

#55

Post by cucumber3732842 »

pjc50 wrote: post #35
DennisP wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That'd be an interesting situation. They'd probably replace their fleet of batteries gradually, so with each swap sometimes you'd get upgraded, sometimes downgraded. Your range and home charging curves would change with the batteries, and Nio would have to update the battery management software when it puts in a different battery type. But over time, you'd get upgraded on average without having to pay for a new batte…

This is in fact the main argument to me why swaps would never work at all, economically: the "state" of the battery is a significant part of the value of the car. Being swapped to a worse one makes you several thousand dollars worse off. It only works in a leasing scenario, and everyone hates those.

How's that any different than putting new tires on a shitbox?

Re: CATL's new LFP battery can charge from 10 to 98% in less than 7 minutes

#56

Post by adrian_b »

chris_va wrote: post #43

The poor grid. The US added basically 0% extra transmission capacity last year. ... Now your local charging station will require a nuclear plant to keep up with ~1MW per car.

The speed of charging is irrelevant, because the energy consumption is the same. The power requirements for a charging station is determined by the number of cars charged in a day, not by how fast they are charged.

The fast chargers that achieve charging in a few minutes, and which are indeed able to provide up to 1 MW of charging power, have their own internal batteries, so they take from the electrical grid a power averaged over a long time, not the peak power that they provide to the charged vehicle.

Re: CATL's new LFP battery can charge from 10 to 98% in less than 7 minutes

#57

Post by adrian_b »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #47
chris_va wrote: post #43

The poor grid. The US added basically 0% extra transmission capacity last year. ... Now your local charging station will require a nuclear plant to keep up with ~1MW per car.

For this sort of fast charging you need the charging station itself to have a large pool of batteries to buffer the energy from the grid and to push it at very high power to cars. Probably still requires a good size connection to the grid. I think this is unavoidable for any sort of decent charging station from now on, anyway but does require significant investment in infrastructure.

Obviously, the engineers at BYD, CATL etc. are not stupid, so these fast chargers, which have been in production for several months and which are already installed in an increasing number of places, do include batteries, so they need only an averaged power from the electrical grid, not the up to 1 MW power that is provided to the charged vehicle.

BYD was the first company demonstrating such batteries and chargers, but CATL followed after a short time. While the times reported by CATL are slightly longer than for BYD at room temperature, these CATL batteries have faster charging at low temperatures.

It is nice to see healthy competition between the major Chinese battery producers. Unfortunately, there is much less competition for them from other countries.

The electrical grid infrastructure that is needed does not depend on the charging speed, but it is determined by the number of cars that are charged per day at a given location (and their average battery capacity).

Re: CATL's new LFP battery can charge from 10 to 98% in less than 7 minutes

#58

Post by xbmcuser »

antonkochubey wrote: post #50
xbmcuser wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the life span stat with the current battery tech is mostly useless for a normal car. 300 mile range most people will need to top up 2 times a week 100 times a year 1000 times in 10 years. The battery degradation is not that bad in the first place.

First, with range decreasing, number of charge cycles per mile, and therefore rate of wear, will increase. Second, average age of car on the road is above 10 years in most countries; and those that drive old cars definitely do not have €26,500* spare to swap their EV's battery for a new one. *That's what Audi charges here for e-tron 50 battery replacement, which are already starting to fail for many owners

Western car manufactures scamming their customer should not be what you look at for costs. Batteries pack costs have gone from $130-150/kwh in 2023 $80-90/kwh in 2026. Price for a pack will likely be under $50/kwh in another 3-4 years. Ie battery packs are becoming competitive with engines already and will be cheaper by 30-40% ie replacing a battery will be cheaper than replacing an engine/

Re: CATL's new LFP battery can charge from 10 to 98% in less than 7 minutes

#59

Post by toast0 »

pjc50 wrote: post #35
DennisP wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That'd be an interesting situation. They'd probably replace their fleet of batteries gradually, so with each swap sometimes you'd get upgraded, sometimes downgraded. Your range and home charging curves would change with the batteries, and Nio would have to update the battery management software when it puts in a different battery type. But over time, you'd get upgraded on average without having to pay for a new batte…

This is in fact the main argument to me why swaps would never work at all, economically: the "state" of the battery is a significant part of the value of the car. Being swapped to a worse one makes you several thousand dollars worse off. It only works in a leasing scenario, and everyone hates those.

I think you'd need a contract where you buy (or lease) the car without a battery and lease/rent the battery separately. With some guaranteed offer for a battery with minimum spec X at maximum price Y when you exit the battery program. Preferably, not a mandatory offer, because one hopes specs go up and prices go down over time.

Then have you pay something per month for having a battery (maybe depends on the specific battery installed), something per kWh for charge used, plus a rebate per kWh for charge added. Or roll it into usage tiers, whatever.

There's lots of people that love leasing cars. I don't understand it, but it makes a lot of people happy?

Re: CATL's new LFP battery can charge from 10 to 98% in less than 7 minutes

#60

Post by antonkochubey »

xbmcuser wrote: post #58
antonkochubey wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, with range decreasing, number of charge cycles per mile, and therefore rate of wear, will increase. Second, average age of car on the road is above 10 years in most countries; and those that drive old cars definitely do not have €26,500* spare to swap their EV's battery for a new one. *That's what Audi charges here for e-tron 50 battery replacement, which are already starting to fail for many owners

Western car manufactures scamming their customer should not be what you look at for costs. Batteries pack costs have gone from $130-150/kwh in 2023 $80-90/kwh in 2026. Price for a pack will likely be under $50/kwh in another 3-4 years. Ie battery packs are becoming competitive with engines already and will be cheaper by 30-40% ie replacing a battery will be cheaper than replacing an engine/

No car manufacturer actually sells battery packs for $80-90/kWh or anywhere near that. That's what it costs THEM, not service customers.
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