- Geely-owned, Chinese brand Zeekr last year revealed its Golden battery, claimed to be the fastest-charging in the world.
- The lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) pack with prismatic cells was claimed to charge from 10-80% in just 10.5 minutes when plugged into a suitably powerful charger.
- Zeekr wasn’t lying. The 7X SUV equipped with the Golden battery beat the automaker’s own estimate in a real-world charging test.
While the U.S. continues to teeter between pro-EV and anti-EV policies with each presidential cycle, electrification isn’t even a debate over in China.
Asia’s second-largest country is moving away from polluting gas cars like few other nations, pushing the boundaries of what EVs can do with each passing day. One of the companies driving this revolution is Geely Group’s Zeekr brand, which makes many high-tech EVs like the 001 crossover, 007 sedan and 009 MPV. Zeekr also happens to be a battery and charging behemoth.
Many of its EVs ride on the Sustainable Experience Architecture (SEA)—also shared by other Geely Group brands like Volvo and Polestar—and it claims to have developed the world’s fastest-charging EV battery. Zeekr claims its Golden battery supports a 5.5 C-rate, meaning it can charge or discharge at 5.5 times its total capacity per hour. At a rate of 1C, for example, a battery would charge in one hour. A rate of 2C would halve that time to 30 minutes. A Tesla Model S briefly charged at a peak of 2.5C in one of our tests, for reference.
The Golden Battery is a big leap. Zeekr says it can charge from 10-80% in just 10.5 minutes.
So, what does that look like in the real world? InsideEVs pal Kyle Conner, also the host of the YouTube channel Out Of Spec Reviews, recently tested the charging capability of the Golden battery on a Zeekr 7X SUV in China. The results are mind-boggling.
The 7X that Conner tested had a 75-kilowatt-hour lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery, which delivers up to 615 kilometers (382 miles) of range on the overly optimistic CLTC cycle. (InsideEVs’ Kevin Williams also reviewed the 7X in China recently, so our own test is coming soon as well.)
Conner ran the 7X’s battery down to 0%, then pulled it into a Zeekr-owned charging station rated for a whopping 840 kilowatts.
Typically, traditional nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) batteries reach a peak charging rate earlier in the charging cycle before gradually tapering off. LFP packs, on the other hand, charge slowly at the very beginning but then hold a flat charging curve most of the way through the charge.
The 7X seems to have gone ballistic right from the beginning.
Soon after plugging in, the 7X displays 200 kW at 3% state-of-charge. The flow of current already exceeds 300 amps, whereas the voltage is over 600V at this stage.
As it approached 10% SoC, it ramped to over 400 kW. It then went on to hit a peak of 460 kW, stabilizing at roughly 400 kW before slowing down at the very end. The indicated time for a full charge was 19 minutes.
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Zeekr
It reached 0-70% in 10 minutes, 10-80% in about 9 minutes and 45 seconds and 0-100% in just over 22 minutes. Ultimately, it added about 600 km of range (371 miles) for just $13 (93 yuan). That’s almost as good as the time it takes to fill up a gas car.
The number of miles added in a specific unit of time is also a key metric while talking about charging speeds. The Zeekr was adding about 1270 miles of range per hour, as it indicated on the display—that’s roughly 21 miles of range per minute.
Just like Tesla, Zeekr is heavily vertically integrated. The R&D, design, engineering and production of this Golden battery were all done in-house. Zeekr also has its own charging network. It’s not as expansive as the Tesla Supercharger network, but the charging speeds they deliver are unheard of in the U.S. Combine that with robust support on the policy front, and Zeekr can build great EVs with ultra-fast charging speeds.
That’s not to say EVs in the U.S. charge slowly. Models like the Lucid Air, Chevy Silverado EV and Hyundai Ioniq 5 boast impressive charging speeds when plugged into the right station. But China’s cutting-edge EVs are in a different league.
Now, with the Trump administration not keen to support this EV transition, China’s lead is only set to grow. If Western automakers want to catch up, it’s going to take a Herculean effort.
Have a tip? Contact the author: suvrat.kothari@insideevs.com
