BYD is bringing its 5-min 'Flash' electric car charging to Canada

> batteries next to these chargers that they charge "off peak"

I don't think that's what they'll do. Charging off peak means being able to store the entirety of the energy demand for the power station in a battery, which is going to be very expensive (assuming 20 cars charge during peak hours every day, that'd mean having to swallow the cost of 20 cars worth of battery per charging station. Good luck getting a good ROI with that).

Instead I think they'll just use the battery so that they never drain the full power of a charge when a car is charging. Drawing a megawatt of current 5% of the time is putting lots of pressure on the local grid, and it can be mitigated by having a battery with the capacity of a car battery that you charge slowly during the whole day (including during peak hour) and discharge fast when a car is charging (for instance, if in average you have 2 cars charging for 5 minutes every hour, you can draw 166kW continuously instead of having bursts of 1MW consumption).

Significant work has been done on the "dendritic" failure mode of electrodes, where crystals grow from one electrode to another and may punch through separator membranes. This has gradually increased cell lifetimes. Now it's all down to temperature. Control-loop monitoring has got a lot better than "shove X amps in there and hope for the best".

> Rubio/newsome/shapiro etc will all keep the full pressure of all allies in them, potentially kicking them out of places they already sell.

I sincerely doubt the US is capable of this. Trump has lit your soft power on fire. Trying to get people to give up a superior and cheaper product is an extremely large ask.

This is bold considering the uncertainty in the Canadian market right now.

For those not familiar with the situation...

Before Trump 2.0:

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The auto sectors of Canada, U.S. and Mexico were highly integrated with parts and vehicles crossing the border at scale. There wasn't much EV production and the NA auto sector probably wasn't up to competing with the Chinese auto sector on prices, but there were steep tariffs keeping Chinese vehicles out of NA markets and many foreign ones too. The highly integrated nature of the sector was seen, by most, as a competitive advantage.

Trump 2.0:

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Trump wanted vehicles to be manufactured in the U.S., not Canada or Mexico. Because... reasons. He slapped sectoral tariffs (that violate CUSMA/USMCA/T-MEC) on cars and parts from Mexico and Canada. His desire seems to be to cut Canada and Mexico out of the NA auto supply chain but somehow still force Canada and Mexico to buy only American, while maintaining tariffs on Chinese autos. It's not exactly easy or quick to just pick up an auto plant and move it, nor is it clear that being inside the U.S. tariff wall is better than being outside of it. These tariffs have mostly just caused the NA auto sector to become really uncompetitive right when people are starting to notice that Chinese autos are offering a lot more bang for the buck.

Canada responds:

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Canada now allows in 49,000 autos to enter the country without facing the former 100% tariff rate. This was in exchange for China lifting tariffs on some Canola products. That's a small fraction of the Canadian auto market, but it's also 49,000 cars that won't be from the U.S. (or Canada). This prompted Trump to suggest that China will not allow Canada to play ice hockey anymore[1]... Hockey aside, this move has sent a message. If Trump does succeed in completely strangling the Canadian auto sector, why would Canada continue to give U.S. autos preferential access to their largest export market?

The uncertainty going forward:

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Is China's foothold in the Canadian market secure? Is it a bargaining chip that might be traded away, or is it permanent? Are trade talks between Canada, the U.S., and Mexico going to go so poorly that the 49,000 number gets upped significantly? China's response to this door cracking open is, evidently, to ram their foot in as fast as they can. A new EV brand or two would likely not make a huge impact in Canada, but a new rapid charging network might make itself indispensable in very short order. It's not like the U.S. has a response for this. Their main EV brand, Tesla, is poison in Canada because of Musk's links to Trump.

[1]https://globalnews.ca/video/11645943/trump-warns-canada-that...

I suspect America will continue to be weird about China until one of three things happens:

- a new Great Power enemy is selected; it would make sense for this to be Russia, but India is also a candidate

- some sort of face-saving moral victory is achieved which allows the US to continue feeling superior and not threatened by China's capability (unclear what this might look like)

- Xi dies and his replacement launches a relationship reset