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

electrek.co

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

#101

Post by cmrdporcupine »

emptybits wrote: post #98
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, this is hiding a lot of geographic reality. You're using the word Canada pretty broadly here, when the reality is that the left-half of the country past Ontario (or arguably Quebec) is pretty shit in this regard. Quebec has that hydroelectric power production. And their power grid is cheap and pretty clean. And their government and populace is highly pro-EV and yeah, it's great. Ontario a bit second to that b…

Sure, but nearly half the population of Canada west of Ontario is in BC (5.0M out of 11.8M west of Ontario), and 92% of BC's electric generation comes from hydro (89%) and wind (3%). I like these numbers. https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/pr... The bulk of the rest of the west's population is Alberta and they generate most of their electricity from natural gas. That province is Canada's sore s…

Right, I meant to call out BC as a relatively positive example but didn't. I agree they're doing the right moves for now.

(I'm from Alberta originally, and fled during the Klein years. I have many ... sensitive ... spots about that place)

That said... electricity generation aside... Massive LNG terminals on the BC coast aren't exactly a positive for the planet. In fact the approval of the first by the Trudeau gov't basically blew Canada's possibility of ever meeting its international climate commitments just on its own.

Natural gas sucks.

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

#102

Post by Yizahi »

gcanyon wrote: post #5

As an American, I'm going to be really sad when we miss this transition. Maybe there's still time?

As a European, US will probably overtake Europe on EVs soon and fast. You have two unique differences to many other countries - a lot of population lives in private houses or condos, where they can just plug in EV in a regular socket without much changes. And US has a sprawling net of private solar installations which will stimulate EVs even more as soon as people will wake up to bills they incur. And lastly US has a proper non-broken and user friendly net of charging stations, courtesy of one rocketman.

Europe on the other hand had a big headstart and squandered it (and no, Norway doesn't count, Norway's experience can't and won't be transferred to other countries). I've spent almost a year looking at the new apartment complexes in a 1 mil city at different price tiers and levels of completion. Almost no charging spots in any of them, or maybe 1-2 spots per 200 apartment building AND they are priced even higher than high cost basic concrete parking place. Public charging stations are very limited in numbers, often closed or out of service. Interop is crap, I've used a corporate EV Astra while on a business trip and the card didn't work anywhere outside of the office parking lot, which by the way is a parking for a 5 storied business center occupied by IT companies and it has exactly 1 (one) moderately crappy charging pole with 1 (one) port. I had to drive to a Ford dealership in my Opel EV and a very pleasant gentleman had to swipe his card to start charging. Oh, and no charging poles had any display or app options, it literally had red, yellow or green led light and that's all we got. And it took me 1.5 hours to top up barely 100 km of range. Now that is an expensive 45k euro EV made no earlier than 2023 with minimal wear and mileage.

In short - Europe "rode" on a wave of rich individuals buying their fun cars and able to afford all externalities for them. This population is running out or leveling. And Europe (both collectively and per-country basis) did barely anything to prepare other people, without fun car money or private houses for EV transition. For example, in my freshly constructed building there are 180 apartments and zero EV chargers. Would any of us buy EV any time soon? Especially since just the car itself usually cost more than similar ICE and there are no subsidies? Doubt it. And it is starting to show, when wildly optimistic EV transition targets are starting being pushed in the future.

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

#103

Post by lukan »

vel0city wrote: post #24
throwatdem12311 wrote: post #11

Is “flash” the blinding light the car makes when it bursts into flames?

You must be confused with the Jeep recall where even parked cars just spotaneously catch fire. It's insane to me how so many people bring up the idea of EVs catching fire when ICE vehicles are constantly having recalls for spontaneously catching fire. I've had multiple recalls on multiple ICE cars advising me to not park the car near my house. I haven't with my EV.

It is almost as if gasoline is not a total safe material either.

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

#104

Post by handle584 »

Grombobulous wrote: post #10

I read an article recently that said something along the lines of “China is pausing on the idea of a BYD Mexico factory over fears of US stealing their technology.” Isn’t it ironic? Don’t ya think? Update: link to the article I was reading: https://electrek.co/2025/03/19/chinese-authorities-delay-app...

More likely related to the slave labor in their Brazil factory [0].

I personally will not buy any Chinese EV until they fix stuff like this.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_Brazil_working_conditions_...

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

#105

Post by cmrdporcupine »

yabones wrote: post #90
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, this is hiding a lot of geographic reality. You're using the word Canada pretty broadly here, when the reality is that the left-half of the country past Ontario (or arguably Quebec) is pretty shit in this regard. Quebec has that hydroelectric power production. And their power grid is cheap and pretty clean. And their government and populace is highly pro-EV and yeah, it's great. Ontario a bit second to that b…

The situation out west is indeed rough. Saskatchewan still burning coal and Alberta... Being Alberta. It's not to say we can't fix it, those are both places where you can build plenty of solar and wind power for very cheap. These problems are very political, but also very fixable. I think (well, hope) once it becomes clear that cheap Chinese EVs are here to stay the tide will begin to turn. In terms of total lifetime…

If Smith fails in her attempts to gerrymander provincial ridings, there is a small chance (based on recent polls) that the growing split between far-far-right and far-right in Alberta yields another "accidental" NDP victory next election.

They're hardly anti-O&G but they do have a slightly more reasonable position around energy mix and renewables. Investing hardcore back into the green energy sectors that Smith tried to kneecap would really improve the situation there.

(If that happens, I'll probably move back to Edmonton after 25 years away. My daughter is doing her BFA at the UofA anyways, and my whole family is still there)

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

#106

Post by arjie »

gpm wrote: post #25
galangalalgol wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A million? 100M only gets you an ev advertisement on the Whitehouse lawn. It will need to be something more like Saudi Arabia's investment in ivanka, i mean the affinity group. 25M a year to his son in law gets your phone calls answered when you feel like Iran is acting up too much. I am not as optimistic. If that doesn't happen the only candidate likely to let china do as they wilt is aoc. Vance would happily start…

> 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.

The soft power that people talk about yielded instantly when used. Trump’s foreign policy has been fairly scatter shot and foolish but it has only revealed that soft power is only soft. When you attempt to exercise it you find nothing there.

The other world powers are exercising their will directly through power as power: no amount of Hollywood or America Is The Good Guy belief ever bought America a trade deal or sanction power.

The only power that America has is her Navy and the nuclear weapons under the seas. Power that cannot be summoned is not power. The illusion that it is suited American allies and her wider array of beneficiaries because it allowed them to call upon the world hegemon for aid. But America is not that sole superpower anymore so it is useful to her to know the illusion for what it is: an illusion.

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

#107

Post by emptybits »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #101
emptybits wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but nearly half the population of Canada west of Ontario is in BC (5.0M out of 11.8M west of Ontario), and 92% of BC's electric generation comes from hydro (89%) and wind (3%). I like these numbers. https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/pr... The bulk of the rest of the west's population is Alberta and they generate most of their electricity from natural gas. That province is Canada's sore s…

Right, I meant to call out BC as a relatively positive example but didn't. I agree they're doing the right moves for now. (I'm from Alberta originally, and fled during the Klein years. I have many ... sensitive ... spots about that place) That said... electricity generation aside... Massive LNG terminals on the BC coast aren't exactly a positive for the planet. In fact the approval of the first by the Trudeau gov't b…

Yeah, I agree. We have a large and persuasive LNG industry influencing government policy.

Not a lot of critical discussion is permitted because of the sheer money at stake. So many resource corporations, their employees, towns, and a heavily lobbied government don't want to sit and have a rational discussion about, oh, say, "How and when will we ween ourselves off LNG because we should?" :-|

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

#108

Post by gpm »

arjie wrote: post #106
gpm wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The soft power that people talk about yielded instantly when used. Trump’s foreign policy has been fairly scatter shot and foolish but it has only revealed that soft power is only soft. When you attempt to exercise it you find nothing there. The other world powers are exercising their will directly through power as power: no amount of Hollywood or America Is The Good Guy belief ever bought America a trade deal or san…

Yeah... that's just not the case. The US routinely successfully exercised its soft power prior to Trump 2.0. For example it's why this news article even exists - the US (under Biden) exercised its soft power to get Canada to effectively ban Chinese EVs - otherwise they would already be here.

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

#109

Post by cmrdporcupine »

emptybits wrote: post #107
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, I meant to call out BC as a relatively positive example but didn't. I agree they're doing the right moves for now. (I'm from Alberta originally, and fled during the Klein years. I have many ... sensitive ... spots about that place) That said... electricity generation aside... Massive LNG terminals on the BC coast aren't exactly a positive for the planet. In fact the approval of the first by the Trudeau gov't b…

Yeah, I agree. We have a large and persuasive LNG industry influencing government policy. Not a lot of critical discussion is permitted because of the sheer money at stake. So many resource corporations, their employees, towns, and a heavily lobbied government don't want to sit and have a rational discussion about, oh, say, "How and when will we ween ourselves off LNG because we should ?" :-|

I get the impression that BC is in a tough spot in that between the forestry/natural gas and speculative real estate "bread", there's not a lot of other meat & cheese in the economic sandwich. Not to say there isn't anything, but manufacturing, tech, and agriculture are proportionally smaller than in Ontario and Quebec. (Though I see more interesting tech positions in Van these days than I do around here in the GTA)

Especially when it comes to economic development in Northern BC or even outside the lower mainland at all, it's difficult to walk away from extractive industries.

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

#110

Post by pixelatedindex »

Yizahi wrote: post #102
gcanyon wrote: post #5

As an American, I'm going to be really sad when we miss this transition. Maybe there's still time?

As a European, US will probably overtake Europe on EVs soon and fast. You have two unique differences to many other countries - a lot of population lives in private houses or condos, where they can just plug in EV in a regular socket without much changes. And US has a sprawling net of private solar installations which will stimulate EVs even more as soon as people will wake up to bills they incur. And lastly US has a…

> I've spent almost a year looking at the new apartment complexes in a 1 mil city at different price tiers and levels of completion. Almost no charging spots in any of them, or maybe 1-2 spots per 200 apartment building AND they are priced even higher than high cost basic concrete parking place.

Anecdotal but it’s been my experience too here in the US. I don’t have a home to plug my car in and I really don’t want to deal with these charging games where you need an app and you have to queue and then be ready to swap your car in. Then you have to keep in mind when it’s done because others are in line. It’s such a hassle that I’m not getting an EV anytime soon. Plus my current vehicle runs without issue and probably will for the next 5-8 years (or more)

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