China’s EV Charging Race Just Broke The Four-Minute Barrier

• Hongqi's new experimental battery can reportedly charge from 10% to 70% in under four minutes.
• China’s charging race is already pushing beyond the five-minute benchmark set only last year.
• The biggest claims still need production-car proof, repeatable performance and real-world charging infrastructure.

It was only last year that five-minute EV charging debuted in China, promising to finally make topping up an EV similarly quick to filling up a combustion car. Now, Chinese automakers and battery manufacturers are already treating it as a benchmark to beat.

CarNewsChina reports that the FAW Group's Hongqi brand has developed a battery that can charge from 10% to 70% in just 3 minutes and 41 seconds. In testing conducted at 77°F (25°C), the pack reportedly charged from 10% to 97% in 8 minutes and 3 seconds.

The battery, developed together with specialist Lishen Battery, can reach a peak charging rate of 12C. That means it can charge 12 times the pack’s capacity, so an 80-kWh battery would peak at roughly 960 kW. FAW says a new anode, electrolyte, and carbon coating process helped reduce internal resistance, while liquid cooling kept the temperature difference across the pack within 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit during charging.

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FAW previously officially announced that it was developing a 1,000-volt EV architecture capable of charging to 80% in five minutes and the two projects could be connected.

However, the automaker has not revealed the battery’s capacity, peak charging power or chemistry. It also hasn’t said which vehicle would receive this new battery or even when the technology might reach customers. For now, this is purely a one-off battery test performed under controlled conditions.

What it signals is Hongqi joining a charging race among Chinese automakers that is moving extraordinarily quickly. BYD demonstrated its one-megawatt charging system last year, and we were there to see it add more than 50% into a production Han L sedan’s battery in under five minutes. Its Super e-Platform supports up to 1,000 kilowatts and can theoretically gain nearly 250 miles of claimed range in five minutes.

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CATL has already gone further, although only on paper for now. Its third-generation Shenxing LFP battery can reportedly go from 10% to 80% in 3 minutes and 44 seconds, before reaching 98% in 6 minutes and 27 seconds. CATL also claims the pack can retain more than 90% of its original capacity after 1,000 ultra-fast charging cycles.

Geely’s Lynk & Co 10 has demonstrated a 10%-to-70% charge in 4 minutes and 22 seconds, reaching 97% in 8 minutes and 42 seconds while briefly peaking at around 1,100 kW. Another Geely brand, Zeekr, has gone further on peak power, showing an updated 001 charging from roughly 4% to 80% in under seven minutes while exceeding a peak power of 1.3 megawatts.

The technology is spreading beyond passenger cars, too. CATL recently announced a new battery for commercial vehicles that claims a 20% to 80% charge time of under seven minutes, with a full charge taking two additional minutes. Hongqi may not have won the charging race outright, or even demonstrated its charging claims in a production vehicle like BYD and Zeekr, but it shows just how quickly EV charging technology is advancing in China, where there’s a real desire between automakers to outdo one another.