Geely goes after BYD with 1800kW electric car chargers
Volvo and Polestar owner Geely is working on 1800kW-capable EV battery chargers that could make their way to Britain in just a few years, enabling five-minute charge times that could surpass BYD’s incoming Flash Chargers.
Speaking to Autocar at the launch of its new EX2 electric hatchback, Michael Yang, MD of the Chinese group’s eponymous Geely brand in the UK, said the first component, completely solid-state batteries, were “just a few months away” in China. He added that Britain’s prominence as a key market means it would be high up the list of non-domestic markets to receive the technology in the future.
“In China we are already developing an ultra-fast-charging facility, where efficiency is rated at 1800 kilowatts,” said Yang. “And we also have Zeekr [another Geely brand] cars that are capable of ultra-rapid 900V charging on the roads, so the speed of development is very high.”
Zeekr’s line-up of saloons and SUVs include models capable of 600kW charging that enables sub-10-minute 10-80% charge times, emphasising how far ahead of Britain China is in terms of present-day charging.
But following successful UK launches in recent years and months, Geely, BYD and SAIC Motor-owned MG are among those racing to bring even higher-performance technology here. Ambitions are already high, as evidenced by Geely’s self-set target to grow its UK market share to 5% by 2030. That means it would need to sell 100,000 vehicles per year, more than 10 times its present performance.
“We are ambitious, but we also have to have a more pragmatic approach to the UK than China, because it’s very different,” cautioned Yang. “First, we’re aiming to give as many people access to charging as we can, with a wall charger at home. And then we will work to introduce cars capable of ultra-fast charging, which will require us to bring ultra-high-kilowatt chargers here. To do that, we will first have to work with charging partners.”
Like the Flash Charging system of its arch rival, Geely intends to make use of batteries stored on site to deliver its plus-1000kW of performance. Once the technology is rolled out via partners, Yang envisages a time when chargers will be Geely-branded. He added that they would be open for use by all electric cars and not just Geely group models, because “a charging station is just like a petrol station, and no petrol station can make enough money by providing a service to only brand or model”.
Related posts
Latest Post
No Comments