Chinese automaker BYD unveiled a new battery Thursday that the company says can charge from 10 percent to 70 percent in five minutes. To reach almost 100% takes about four minutes longer.
Such recharge times would negate concerns about electric vehicle charging times — one of the few places where internal combustion engines retain an advantage. Even in bitter cold (–4°F or –20°C), the pack can charge from 20% to 97% in less than 12 minutes, according to BYD. The battery pack, known as the Blade Battery 2.0 system, is set to debut in the Yangwang U7, a full-size luxury sedan.
There is one critical caveat to this impressive figure. The Yangwang U7 sedan, or any other future BYD vehicle equipped with this next-generation battery pack, can only reach this super-fast charging time when paired with one of the company’s new Flash Charging EV chargers, which can deliver 1.5 megawatts of electricity.
However, BYD is likely counting on this impressive charging technology to boost sales and give it an edge in a price war with other Chinese automakers that are rolling out new and improved electric vehicles at a rapid pace.
The Shenzhen-based company has been a favorite of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway for years. The investor bought a 10% stake in the automaker in 2008 for $230 million — long before it became a rival to Tesla and a household name. Berkshire sold its last shares in 2025, returning more than 20x the initial investment.
Today, BYD is the world’s largest maker of electric vehicles – a situation that other Chinese automakers and Tesla are keen to change. While BYD continues to outpace competitors such as Li Auto, Xpeng, Xiaomi and Zeekr, there has been a recent decline in sales. The company reported that combined January and February 2026 sales volume fell by about 36% compared to the previous year.
The next-generation battery system could help it attract new customers and retain existing ones.
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The new Blade Battery 2.0 achieves the feat of ultra-fast charging using lithium iron phosphate (LFP), a chemistry that automakers are betting will help lower electric vehicle costs because it avoids the use of expensive metals like cobalt or nickel. Currently, LFP packages cost $81 per kilowatt-hour compared to $128 per kilowatt-hour for nickel manganese cobalt (NMC); according to at BloombergNEF.
Because LFP is not as energy dense as other chemicals such as NMC, it cannot carry as much energy, which limits the range. As a result, Western car manufacturers almost exclusively use LFP cells in their less expensive models. But BYD is betting that by speeding up the charging process, LFP can be accepted in more than low-end electric vehicles.
Prior to Flash Charging, BYD had released a 1MW charging system for a previous sedan, the Han L, that used two 500kW charging cables that both had to be connected. In the US and Europe, the fastest chargers tend to top out at 350kW, although there are a growing number of chargers that are 500kW.
BYD’s Flash Charging benches feature cables that drop from overhead towers, which allow the cables to serve both sides of the vehicle. It should also make it easier to connect, as the cables and charging plug are probably heavy enough to handle the amount of power they’re designed to handle. BYD said it has completed 4,200 Flash Charging stations across China with the goal of adding about 16,000 more by the end of the year, though we should note that the automaker uses the name “Flash” to describe its 1 megawatt chargers as well. It also said it would add grid-scale batteries to the facility to ease pressure on the grid.
In the U7 full-size sedan, the battery can power the car for just over 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) on the China Light Vehicle Test Cycle (CLTC), which tends to be optimistic. CLTC overestimates range by about 35% compared to the more realistic EPA test cycle. In real-world driving, the car could probably cover just over 400 miles on a single charge.
That’s less range than a Lucid Air Grand Touring, which can travel 512 miles on a full 117 kWh pack, according to the EPA test cycle. But the ability to add 240 miles to five minutes could make such comparisons moot.
