BYD rolls out EV batteries with 5-minute ‘flash charging’ — but there’s a catch

Chinese automaker BYD unveiled a new battery pack Thursday that the company says is capable of charging from 10% to 70% in five minutes. Taking it to almost 100% takes about four minutes more.

Recharge times like those would nullify concerns about electric vehicles’ charging times — one of the few places where internal combustion engines retain an advantage. Even in bitter cold weather (–4°F or –20°C), the pack can charge from 20% to 97% in under 12 minutes, according to BYD. The battery pack, known as the Blade Battery 2.0 system, is slated to debut in the Yangwang U7, a full-size luxury sedan.

There is a critical caveat to this eye-popping figure. The Yangwang U7 sedan, or any other future BYD vehicle equipped with this next-generation battery pack, can only reach this ultra-fast charging time when paired with one of the company’s new Flash Charging EV chargers, which is capable of delivering 1.5 megawatts of electricity.

Still, BYD is likely counting on this flashy charging tech to boost sales and give it an edge in a price war with other Chinese automakers that are rolling out new and improved EVs at a rapid clip.

The Shenzhen-based company was a darling of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway holdings for years. The investor bought a 10% stake in the automaker in 2008 for $230 million — long before it became a Tesla rival and household name. Berkshire sold its last shares in 2025, returning more than 20x the original investment.

Today, BYD is the world’s largest manufacturer of EVs — a status that other Chinese automakers and Tesla are keen to change. While BYD still outpaces competitors like Li Auto, Xpeng, Xiaomi, and Zeekr, there has been a recent dip in sales. The company reported that its combined January and February sales volume in 2026 dipped by roughly 36% compared to the year before.

Its next-generation battery system could help it attract new customers and retain existing ones.

The new Blade Battery 2.0 accomplishes the ultra-fast charging feat by using lithium iron phosphate (LFP), a chemistry that automakers are betting will help lower the cost of EVs because it avoids the use of pricy metals like cobalt or nickel. Currently, LFP packs cost $81 per kilowatt-hour compared with $128 per kilowatt-hour for nickel manganese cobalt (NMC), according to BloombergNEF.

Because LFP isn’t as energy dense as other chemistries like NMC, it can’t carry as much energy, which limits range. As a result, Western automakers almost exclusively use LFP cells in their less expensive models. But BYD is betting that by speeding up the charging process, LFP can become acceptable in more than just low-end EVs.

Before releasing Flash Charging, BYD had rolled out a 1 megawatt charging system for a previous sedan, the Han L, that used two 500 kW charging cables that needed to both be plugged in. In the U.S. and Europe, the fastest chargers tend to top out at 350 kW, though there are an increasing number of 500 kW chargers that are being rolled out.

BYD’s Flash Charging stalls have cables draping from overhead towers, which allow the cables to serve either side of the vehicle. It should also make plugging in easier since the cables and charging plug are probably pretty heavy to cope with the amount of power they’re rated to handle. BYD said it has 4,200 Flash Charging stations completed throughout China with a goal of adding about 16,000 more by the end of the year, though we should note that the automaker uses the “Flash” name to describe its 1-megawatt chargers, too. It also said it will add grid-scale batteries to the installations to relieve 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-Duty Vehicle Test Cycle (CLTC), which tends to be optimistic. CLTC overstates range by about 35% compared with the more realistic EPA test cycle. In real-world driving, the car would likely be able to cover just over 400 miles on a single charge.

That’s less range than a Lucid Air Grand Touring, which can travel for 512 miles on a full 117 kWh pack, according to the EPA test cycle. But being able to add 240 miles in five minutes could make such comparisons moot.