Source : THE AGE NEWS
Volvo’s Chinese owner has unveiled an electric car battery that can charge in just four-and-a-half minutes.
Geely said the time needed for its new battery to go from 10 per cent to 70 per cent, an industry benchmark for a reasonable charge, was the fastest in the industry.
It has shaved 20 seconds off the next best battery, developed by China’s biggest electric carmaker BYD, which has also been pouring money into so-called “flash charging”.
BYD unveiled a system earlier this year capable of charging a battery from 10 per cent to 97 per cent in nine minutes, and announced plans for 90,000 charging stations by 2028.
Geely said its new system could charge a battery from 10 per cent to 97 per cent in eight minutes and 40 seconds, using a charger capable of delivering up to 2.2 megawatts (MW) of power.
The one-upmanship underlines the pace of innovation among Chinese carmakers in the cut-throat EV market.
Zhang Dewang, a Geely executive, said the speed of charging was “approaching the physical limit”.
“The marginal gains from pursuing even faster speeds in the future will become increasingly small,” he told Reuters at a launch event in China.
Geely has bested BYD by using a higher voltage system. Its new battery uses an 800-volt electrical system and the higher voltage allows more electricity to be pushed into the battery at once, helping to cut charging times.
The 2.2 MW peak output is also above the power available from most conventional public chargers. Tesla’s latest Supercharger technology, for example, is rated at up to 500 kilowatts, making Geely’s claimed peak power more than four times as high.
The Galaxy E5, an electric SUV, will be the first Geely model to use the new technology when it goes on sale in China later this year.
Geely, which also owns Lotus and has stakes in Polestar, is among the Chinese groups expanding rapidly overseas. It sold 1.42 million vehicles in the first half of this year and has raised its target for exports to 920,000 vehicles in 2026.
In the UK, Geely currently sells its EX5 electric SUV and the Starray EM-i hybrid. The new Galaxy E5 is a Chinese-market model and is not currently sold in Britain, although the E5 is badged as the EX5 for the UK market.
China produced almost 75 per cent of the world’s electric cars last year, while exports of Chinese-made EVs more than doubled to a record 2.5 million vehicles. Chinese-made EV sales in Europe also jumped by almost 50 per cent in 2025.
The charging battle is part of a wider shift in the Chinese car industry, where manufacturers are now competing on battery range, charging speeds and driver-assistance technology rather than simply price.
Telegraph, London
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