The progress for faster charging of EV batteries continues, with Chinese company Zeekr recently announcing the charging speeds for their new battery packs, which are just about to enter the mainstream market. Based on an 800V architecture, and using lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) battery cell chemistry, they claim a charging speed of 5.5C (that is 5.5 times the nominal rated charge rate of a battery pack). This means only 10½ minutes to charge the pack from 10% to 80% SoC (this goes up to 30 minutes in -10C air temperatures).
Whilst LFP batteries are traditionally regarded in the industry as having lower energy density compared to nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) batteries at the cell level, the engineers at Zeekr have designed the battery pack to achieve higher energy density at the pack level.
At present not all installed charge points are designed for 800V battery architectures (although this has started to become more common in car manufacturers). Whilst you will still be able to charge on a more standard 400V charge point, you won't see the blistering speeds quoted above. However, as more 800V charge points are rolled out across the network, battery technology like Zeekr's helps to bring more widespread adoption of EVs with the public.
After all, 10½ minutes is barely enough time to have a comfort break and queue for a coffee.
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