Faster than fuelling! BYD's game-changing EV charging breakthrough on Australia-bound SUV delivers 400km range in five minutes as China dominates Tesla on tech

BYD might have just changed the EV game around the world, revealing a charging breakthrough that can deliver 400kms in driving range in just five minutes.

To put that into perspective, a fully charged electric car could theoretically drive from Sydney to Melbourne with just one, or at worst two, five-minute charging stops, making the journey no slower than in an ICE vehicle.

The breakthrough arrives thanks to a development in the vehicle's electric architecture. While most electric vehicles are equipped with 400-volt architecture – and some, generally more high-end, products deploy an 800-volt architecture, BYD says it has devised a 1000-volt architecture, dubbed the Super e-Platform, which will underpin its vehicles.

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Generally speaking, the more advanced the architecture, the higher the DC charging speeds a vehicle can accept. And the higher the charging speed, the faster the battery replenishes.

BYD's new Super e-Platform vehicles can charge at speeds of up to 1000kW, which the brand says will deliver 400kms range in just five minutes. In fact, when testing the brand's Han L sedan, it found the number was more like 470kms.

The tech is now being deployed in China on the Han L sedan and Tang L SUV – wth the latter expected to arrive in Australia next year

Now, some caveats. Charging speed is limited both by what the vehicle can accept, and by the speed of the charger. So a vehicle with 100kW capability plugged into a 50kW charger will charge at 50kW, and equally, a vehicle with 100kW capability plugged into a 350kW charger will charge at a maximum 100kW.

BYD unveils 1000V charging

And there in lies the technology's first hurdle in Australia, where our fastest chargers currently max out at 350kW.

The brand says the Super e-Platform – which also unlocks astonishing acceleration, like zero to 100km/h in two seconds – will underpin its future models, and the brand is currently building the first 4000 chargers to deploy across China and then the globe in what would be a rival to the Tesla Supercharger network.

"In order to completely solve our user's charging anxiety, we have been pursuing a goal to make the charging time of electric vehicles as short as the refuelling time of petrol vehicles," BYD founder Wang Chuanfu told Reuters.

BYD unveils 1000V battery

"This is the first time in the industry that the unit of megawatt has been achieved on charging power."