Geely & Zeekr Right Behind BYD with 1,500 kW Charging

Support CleanTechnica’s work through a Substack subscription or on Stripe.

Well, the news of the month so far has been BYD unveiling 1,500 kW “flash charging” for passenger electric vehicles. Apparently, though, it’s hard to keep secrets in the Chinese EV industry and BYD’s top competitor has been working on the same thing. In particular, the Zeekr 001 will be the first vehicle from Geely’s expansive network of brands and models that will be able to utilize such insanely powerful charging.

Using its “Golden Battery” with 12C charging capability and new 1,500 kW Geely fast chargers, the 2026 Zeekr 001 can reportedly go from 10% to 80% battery state of charge in just 7 minutes. Technically, with 900V architecture, the model can take in up to 1,488 kW of power.

“The transition toward a 1,500V high-voltage architecture serves as the foundation for Geely’s premium New Energy Vehicle (NEV) roadmap. This system supports the new 16-in-1 electric drive, an integrated 900V unit producing 370 kW (503 hp). Energy storage for this ecosystem is provided by Geely’s Aegis short-blade Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) units and solid-liquid hybrid batteries,” CarNewsChina shares.

“A key technical metric of the Aegis chemistry is its low-temperature resilience; data indicates these units retain 90.5% of their capacity at -30°C. Furthermore, these cells have demonstrated 92.1% health retention after 1,500 full charge cycles, addressing long-term durability concerns associated with ultra-fast charging.”

Aside from Zeekr, other Geely brands include Lynk & Co, Volvo Cars, and Lotus.

Rather than using 3rd party charging station operators, Geely is actually focused on owning and operating its charging stations itself. The new 1,500 kW fast chargers are expected to service 50 to 60 vehicles a day, and Geely assumes an average of 50 kWh of energy will be provided to the cars. Like BYD, Geely is pairing these insanely powerful chargers with onsite energy storage buffers. Those are supposed to have 300 to 500 kWh of energy storage capacity each.

So, yes, a new charging era has begun (in China). And we are FAR past the 50 kW “fast chargers” of a decade (or more?) ago. It’s quite hilarious to think that not long ago, those were the industry standard for fast charging…. Where will we be in a decade? Frankly, I can’t see us going much beyond 1.5 MW charging — if going beyond it at all — because what even would the point be??? There’s hardly time to use the bathroom at this new pace.