BYD's Blade Battery 2.0 just hit 210 Wh/kg and charges 10-to-70% in 5 minutes — here's why the numbers actually matter

>BYD is essentially bundling next-gen charging capability into mass-market vehicles, not just flagship SUVs And they are exporting them. Pretty much most of what you said is correct. >does ultra-fast charging start to make battery swapping obsolete? They are not competing yet. They compliment. It's the exact same between L2 and 1.5MW charging. Keep in mind that putting in buffer batteries at a charging station isn't a new idea. Neither is putting chargers at a swap station that has extra batteries sitting around. The important thing about 5 minute EV charging is not if it will be successful but that it needed to happen. Now people can't complain about slow charge times. Which was also the reason for getting battery swapping down to 1 minute.

While it does seem like a great battery, the charging speeds, at this point, are basically irrelevant in North America. We have a severe lack of charging infrastructure in huge areas and there are no current plans to bring the 1500 kW chargers here. This might be awesome in 10 years, but really doesn't mean much yet.

> Does 5-minute charging to 70% effectively kill the range anxiety argument? Range anxiety was never a real argument for faster charging. Fast charging is not required for long drives because your break activities are usually longer than the car charges, anyhow. (An asterisk applies for some legacy cars with extremely slow DC fast charging capabilities) However, fast charging ***is*** a game changer for people with curbside parking and no access to public charging at/near home or at/near work. For those a short trip to a fast charger becomes a viable alternative for their day-to-day. Swapping has been obsolete from the get-go.

All good and well but I expect everybody to see the real capabilities on a mass produced vehicle. Real world performance might be tuned down for long therm reliability

The 1MW EVs have been out for a year now.

Fast charging **is** the game changer for >40 metric tons EV trucks/semis/lorries. Though there are plenty of existing EV lorries here doing cross Europe long distance trucking. The mandatory resting periods makes it already possible here. But the 1.5 MW chargers makes it even easier.

LMFP is the big deal. I think density can go up even more in next iteration(may be to 240wh/kg). Could co-exist long term along with whatever SSB or Si Anode Battery that we will see in Cars in next 3-5 years.

The reality is LFP's battery are the wrong ones. They don't work on cold and on hot countries. Will this new ones have the same problem? Note : LFP batteries problems will start appearing this year. Tesla did a big mistake when they went LFP - and they know it already. Batteries dying at 20% of charge is happening on model 3 and Y - no calibration can solve it. They work 'kind of ok' as home Batteries, stored inside, but not on cars.

Even 200kW sustained is great.

\>your break activities are usually longer than the car charges, anyhow. I feel like you are generalizing a lot. There are many people who drive very long distances with little to no breaks. For example, I have done many ski trips where I drive several hours on end where I only stop to pee. Some of these trips would be a little more complicated in an EV.

I mean a lot of sensible people keep their cars 10+ years, so...

I'm not optimistic for the future of American, European, and Japanese automakers given the rapid pace of battery innovation in China.

If I understand correctly, that flash charging station doesn’t depend on the grid directly. They have buffer batteries that can charge more slowly so that not to put too much pressure on the grid, and then they discharge those large batteries at 1500 kw. With such buffer, the charging station can be usable without needing upgrades to grid infrastructure.

I think you are confused on the battery types, the ones that Tesla uses are NMC not LFP

Personally, I don't have a lot of sympathy for this argument. Plan sufficient rest breaks into long drives, regardless of fuel type. ICE car ranges and refuelling letting you develop bad habits isn't justification for anything. You are a demonstrably less aware and less reactive driver after 4+ hours of driving. Imagine you were at work, controlling a 2 ton industrial machine, and you heard somebody saying "I can get more done if I skip my break. I don't need to rest.". That's how you sound, to me.

210 wh/kg being cell level is, I believe, a mistranslation I've seen a few times now. [Here's the original Sina article that discussed energy density](http://article_7857201856_1d45362c0019030pas.html), when translated you can see the following: > Second-generation blade battery: Energy density exceeds 250Wh/kg, low-temperature performance surpasses ternary lithium batteries. > The lithium iron phosphate (LFP) route improves energy density by approximately 40%. > The second-generation blade battery uses a lithium manganese iron phosphate chemistry system, increasing the system energy density to 190-210Wh/kg, an improvement of approximately 40% compared to the first-generation product. Models equipped with a 120kWh battery pack easily achieve a range exceeding 1000 kilometers with the CLTC. The all-new Denza Z9GT (configuration |inquiry) achieves an even more impressive 1036 kilometers, setting a new benchmark for range in mass-produced pure electric sedans globally. This to me indicates that the cell level energy density is 250Wh/kg, but the pack level density will sit around 190-210Wh/kg depending on the implementation and cell layout. I'm relying on a translation here but "system lecel energy density" seems fairly clear, so unless the translation is horribly off I think my assumption is sound.

It's worth mentioning that between adblue and diesel, it's actually generally longer than a car driver would expect to refuel an HGV anyway. If the pump is even slightly clogged and slowing down, it can (as a worst case scenario) take like 15-20+ minutes of standing there to get it to fill up.

Tesla uses both, depending on the car and pack.

Do you know for sure that the high energy density on system level and the quick charging is really combined in one cell? I saw some pages saying there are two new second generation blades. A short one (for 8C charging) and a long one (3C, but higher energy density).

Tesla uses lfp on all non long range cars. The ones that are failing like there is no tomorrow. That was their mistake. Forced by Tesla China.

My mistake, didn't know any link yo to read about it?

It was only a matter of time for this to happen (mass market level EVs with 500kW - 1 MW charging capability) and China is leading the pack. Bravo! ICE, PHEV, HEV, REEV, EV BattSwap, Hydrogen...dead end tech. Now, start seeding BESS 500kW+ chargers everywhere. No grid updates required. No new megalomaniac decades to build powerplants required.

Lol. It's everywhere. They started 4 years ago. Now they saw the big mistake they did.

If you have enough money, you can make it happen in 2 years. BESS chargers like those in New York don't need significant investments into powerlines.

I don't live in the US and tesla wasn't present in my country until this month, that's why i didn't knew.

Why, German car makers innovate too

Ok. So low range - Catl lfp batteries. Model 3 or Model y. Long range in Europe - LG nmc batteries.

EU/US/JA car with a chinese battery? They didn't build their gas tanks themselves either (I'm aware it's not a 1/1 situation at all). If the price keep going down, at what point will battery be again a non-significant part of the total value of a car? If the EU keeps adding regulations, safety assists will soon be more than the whole of the car :P

The problem is price. If these advancements don't translate into lower priced EV's then they don't mean anything to me. I still to this day can't buy a decent EV for under $25k in my country. And even those in the $25-35k range come with some shortcomings. Meanwhile I can buy dozens of ICE models, of various shapes and sizes below $25k.

Correct. Just like last time there a short (power) and long (range) cell. One charges fast the other faster. The charge times are out there.

Prices are out for the new models and the charger fees.

Yeah, so? I'm not in China. So those prices don't matter to me.

> The problem is price.

Uhuh, like those new vw door handles, which improove nothing and just add confusion.

We were talking about batteries, not about door handles

[https://youtu.be/A-RfHC91Ewc](https://youtu.be/A-RfHC91Ewc)

>Why, German car makers innovate too Which German car makers make Li-Ion cells? I know they don't make the door handles.

I have done many trips with friends and family where we share the driving. 10 minutes reststop and swapping the driver. Also slept many hours in the car

Good for you. Nothing in their point suggests this is the case for them. I am not saying that faster charging is bad. Fast charging is good. Faster charging indeed enables hot swapping of drivers; vanishingly small percentage of total journeys that it is. Yay for that. All I am saying is that driving large amounts of time, without sufficient breaks, regardless of the fuel you're using to do it with, is bad. Do not do it. Changing drivers can, indeed, be one way to avoid it.

I know some countries have insurances where anyone with a valid license can drive the car. Then there are countries where the insurance is tight to a registered driver or drivers. In this scenario the chance of a tired driver is far greater

Ok? Driver swapping still has nothing to do with my point. I care that whoever is driving the car at any specific moment is planning sufficient breaks.

Plenty of 350kw stations around, which means an 80kwh version of this battery would still charge 10-80% in just under 10 minutes, because the charge curve doesn’t dip below 350kw until 80ish%. Charge curves are funny things.

I think a better analogy would be the engine, not the gas tank. Car makers **do** outsource engines but the big ones tend not to.

Literally all of them?

Try again?

You are correct the short 8C one is 160Wh/kg and costs more (probably has a lot more copper inside).

Literally all of then

This is why si/c batteries are not the future of battery tech. America doesn't fear EV's like the Xiaomi SU7. That vehicle would probably be 65-70k if it hit American soil. They fear cheap EV's. You can't do cheap with si/c. What BYD and CATL are doing is economically sound.

>They have buffer batteries that can charge more slowly so that not to put too much pressure on the grid, and then they discharge those large batteries at 1500 kw. With such buffer, the charging station can be usable without needing upgrades to grid infrastructure. From the post: >One caveat worth noting: each station uses an integrated battery buffer for grid management, but 36kr's analysis suggests each buffer can only serve 3–4 cars before needing to recharge from the grid. So, yes and no. For lower traffic areas, no grid improvements might be necessary. But for higher traffic areas, then more batteries are needed, grid improvements are needed, or charging rates will need to be throttled below the 1,500kW headline.

>210 Wh/kg For reference: coal: 7 Wh/kg gasoline: 12,200 Wh/kg uranium: 24,000,000 Wh/kg

Charging speed is one of the dimensions on range anxiety. The other ones is availability on required waypoints and at destination, including the reliability dimension. For road tripping, a 10-15 minute charge time aligns with 'bio breaks' timelines. The 5 minute timeline aligns more with 'ride share and delivery' paradigm.

A lot of misinformation. The energy density only increases about 5% compared to first gen blade battery, not 30% -40%, the first gen blade battery PACK energy density is 140-150Wh/kg, you should not compare CELL energy density to PACK energy density. It's still LFP chemistry, not LMFP(lithium manganese iron phosphate), so cell nominal voltage is still 3.2V, not 3.8V.

That's totally false information. BYD itself claim second-generation blade battery improves energy density by 5%, compared to first gen. No freaking way it has higher energy density than NMC battery.

There will always be that "Yeah, but can it tow my caravan 3000 miles uphill non-stop without charging" group who will never buy an EV. Regardless, this technology once implemeted won't kill the range anxiety, it will obliterate it. It will more come down to grid stability than the EV charger now.

That still could be scaled with more buffers, I think? Or just put a bigger grid-scale battery. There are other options for slowly charging and quickly discharging high amounts of power, such as flywheels. I don’t know about economics of that stuff though, might as well just upgrade the grid instead.

You are downvotes cause these Muppets think they have a right to drive dangerously and fly a metal.missle with no real training or skill to start with

Your country can remove tariffs on Chinese EVs and then you can get a many decent 25k-35k EVs as you like!

There are five 350 kW stations within 900km of where I live. They are not common in rural areas where they are desperately needed.

Uh where are you getting those numbers... coal is not at 7 Wh/kg

That's for the high discharge/charge ratio version - the one that hits >10C charge ratio.

>Plan sufficient rest breaks into long drives, regardless of fuel type. ICE car ranges and refuelling letting you develop bad habits isn't justification for anything. You are a demonstrably less aware and less reactive driver after 4+ hours of driving. It's not 4+ hours though, is it? My 250+ mile range BEV gets more like 200 miles in the real world. Now if we're only charging 10-70% like in this article, that's 60% of that usable, or 120 miles. 120 miles doesn't take me 4 hours at 80MPH, it takes an hour and a half.

No they're downvoted because basically no BEV's exist that can go 4 hours in a go with quick stops, and even most gas cars can struggle to get 4 hours under the same constraints as a BEV.