Geely Charges EVs in 4.5 Minutes and ‘Heals’ the Battery Along the Way
Trending Topics Jakob Steinschaden
Geely says it can charge an EV from 10% to 70% in 4.5 minutes. It also claims the battery lasts 20% longer, which is the bigger surprise.
Based on reporting by Trending Topics, Jakob Steinschaden — read the original for the full story.
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Geely has shown off a fast-charging system in Ningbo that it says can take an electric car from 10 percent to 70 percent in four and a half minutes. The company claims there’s a second benefit too: the battery can last 20 percent longer. That puts Geely straight into the fight with BYD, which set the pace earlier this year with its own Flash Charging system.
The headline number comes from a fifth-generation charging station rated at 2,250 kilowatts at peak. BYD’s stations, by comparison, reach 1,500 kilowatts. In Geely’s tests, a Lynk & Co 10 and a Zeekr 001 both hit 70 percent in 4 minutes 30 seconds, then went on to 97 percent after 8 minutes 40 seconds.
The battery side is where Geely is trying to make the speed story sound less like a trade-off. Its Shendun Golden Battery supports a 12C charging rate, while a cheaper Ultra Short Blade battery with 6C is on the way. Geely says five parts of the system are liquid-cooled for the first time, from storage in the station through the charger, cable and connector, all the way to the car battery. The company says cells are meant to stay below 55 degrees Celsius on average, and that the new Short Blade battery makes 10 percent less heat while charging.
There’s also a software layer. Geely’s Xingrui PowerMind model, built with the A.I. startup StepFun, is said to predict battery temperature up to 30 seconds ahead and coordinate the vehicle, battery, charging station, cloud, power grid and energy storage. That same pitch also includes Geely’s “lithium-ion pulse restoration,” which sends micro-pulses through the cells to reactivate ions that would otherwise pile up on the negative electrode and cause lithium plating.
Geely says that process raises the number of charging cycles by 20 percent, but it does not give a lifespan in cycles or years, and there are no independent tests yet. For now, the company is focusing on China. Europe hasn’t been announced as a target, even though the brands under Geely’s umbrella could eventually carry the tech there. And with 205,000 cars sold in the first eight months, Geely is already the most popular Chinese brand in the E.U.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is exactly where the EV race is heading: not just faster charging, but a promise that speed won’t wreck the battery. The slick part is the software-and-cooling story; the hard part is proving it outside a press release. China is turning megawatts into bragging rights, and the rest of the industry is still catching up with the plugs.
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