Chery Joins China’s EV Charging Race With A Bold Promise

• Chery says Volt-dragon can add 311 miles in five minutes and plans 20,000 V2G-enabled stations by 2029.
• Chinese outlets report a room-temperature test achieved a 10–97% charge in six minutes and 50 seconds.
• The test vehicle, battery capacity and timeline for customers to access that performance remain unclear.

Seven minutes used to be barely enough time to get a public charger working, buy a coffee, and try to remember where you parked. Chery says it’s now enough to take an EV battery from almost empty to almost full, an impressive claim. But it’s not clear which of its cars can actually do it.

At the Global Innovation Conference in Wuhu, China, on October 20, Chery demonstrated its “Volt-dragon” charging technology alongside a station combining solar generation, energy storage, and vehicle-to-grid capability. In its official announcements, the automaker claims the system can add 500 kilometers, or about 311 miles, of driving range in five minutes.

Chinese reporting from the event, picked up by CarNewsChina, offers a more eye-catching number: a room-temperature charging test that took the battery from 10% to 97% in six minutes and 50 seconds. The charging equipment’s advertised peak specifications are 1.44 megawatts and 1,500 amps. That doesn’t mean the car actually drew 1.44 MW, but even if it did, it obviously did not maintain it throughout the session.

Chery’s English-language releases confirm the five-minute range claim and its ambition to establish 20,000 V2G-enabled stations worldwide by 2029, but don’t provide the 6:50 charging time. Those releases also don't identify the test vehicle, battery capacity, or when the tech would hit the market. The range claim also lacks a specified test cycle, although it’s likely China’s CLTC.

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The clear takeaway is that Chery didn’t just want to demonstrate a very high charging rate. It wanted to show how a station integrates electricity generation and storage, and how bidirectional charging lets compatible vehicles return energy to the grid.

It also promises to make the equipment easier to use. It says the charging cable and connector together weigh just 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds), while operating noise stays below 50 decibels. Further down the road, it envisions robotic arms that could plug in for an even more seamless charging experience.

With this demonstration, Chery is joining a Chinese charging race increasingly measured in seconds. In March 2024, Li Auto revealed the Mega minivan, claiming it could add 500 kilometers of range in 12 minutes. Later that year, Zeekr was advertising a 10–80% charge in 10.5 minutes using its upgraded LFP battery and compatible ultra-fast chargers. Chinese manufacturers were already competing to make charging stops shorter before BYD’s five-minute announcement.

BYD’s March 2025 Super e-Platform reveal nevertheless raised the stakes. Its 1,000-volt architecture supported megawatt charging, with a claimed 249 miles (400 kilometers) added in five minutes. BYD also named the first cars with this capability (the Han L sedan and Tang L SUV).

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One year later, BYD’s second-generation Blade battery focused on reaching higher states of charge, charging 10–70% in five minutes and 10–97% in nine. BYD also claimed a 20–97% session at minus 30 degrees Celsius would take only about three minutes longer than its room-temperature benchmark.

Hongqi has also revealed an experimental ultra-fast-charging battery that reportedly reached 10–70% in three minutes and 41 seconds and 10–97% in eight minutes and three seconds. There’s no clear production timeframe, but parent company Dongfeng followed with a prototype charger rated at 1,500 kW per connector.

Last month, Xpeng announced a megawatt charging station in Hong Kong, while battery supplier Sunwoda presented a system claiming 10–70% in five minutes and 10–97% in nine. On September 23, Geely unveiled a 2,250-kW charging system, claiming that prototype Lynk & Co 10 and Zeekr 001 vehicles achieved 10–70% in four minutes and 30 seconds and 10–97% in eight minutes and 40 seconds.

Chery’s new charging claim is certainly competitive alongside all these examples. But we don’t have enough details to get the full picture. The manufacturer left out the all-important production plan, leaving us with plenty of unanswered questions.