Chery Unveils 1.44-Megawatt Charger Promising 500 Kilometers of Range in Five Minutes
Chery has announced a 1.44MW fast-charging system, joining a crowded field of Chinese automakers and battery makers racing to cut charging times to mere minutes.
By News Media House Staff ·
Chinese automaker Chery has announced a 1.44-megawatt charging system that it says can add 500 kilometers (311 miles) of range to an electric vehicle in five minutes. The announcement adds another entrant to China's rapidly escalating contest over fast-charging technology, in which Chery's system is not the quickest on offer.
According to figures reported by CarNewsChina, the system can take a battery from 10 to 97 percent in 6 minutes and 50 seconds. Chery's new "Volt-Dragon" battery is the second-fastest to reach 97 percent state of charge in CarNewsChina's comparison, 23 seconds behind the record of 6 minutes and 27 seconds set by CATL. FAW, Geely and BYD all land between 8 and 9 minutes on the same measure.
Some rivals have also published charging times for very cold or very hot weather. Chery did not release such figures in its announcement. It did say the system could still deliver 500 kilometers of range in 8 minutes in what it called "conservative scenarios."
The competition has grown intense enough that companies are now vying over seconds rather than minutes. BYD has a 1.5MW charger and has already installed 10,000 of them. Geely recently announced a 2.2MW unit, and CATL has developed a battery built for extremely fast charging.
Like Geely, Chery has attached an "AI-Powered" label to its technology. Its system, called CheryMind, is said to adjust charging power in response to temperature changes inside the battery, with the aim of sustaining optimal charging speed while protecting battery health.
The gap with the United States is considerable. The fastest public chargers there deliver around 400kW, and 750kW units could arrive next year. That is ample for refueling on a road trip, but higher-speed chargers could ease pressure at busy, high-throughput DC charging sites, particularly in urban areas where some drivers lack a reliable place to park and charge.
Chery has only just begun installing its chargers and says 100 will soon be open across 10 Chinese cities. The company plans to build 20,000 stations worldwide by 2029. That timeline is considerably slower than BYD's goal of having 20,000 chargers installed by the end of this year.
Source: Electrek
