Denza EV charging network capable of blistering 1,360kW speeds, and it’s coming to the UK

Denza – BYD’s premium sister brand and answer to Mercedes – won’t just start selling cars in the UK next year. It’s also planning to build a network of impossibly fast charging points that will not only be open to all EV drivers, but more affordable to use than most other rapid chargers.

A bit of background: earlier this year, BYD unveiled its new ‘flash charging battery’ technology that allows cars to charge at up to 1,000kW (one megawatt), and in turn add roughly 250 miles of range in just five minutes. That’s about as much time as it takes to fill the tank in a petrol car. 

To deliver ridiculous speeds like that, the company designed an all-liquid-cooled charging point that can reach up to 1,360kW. For reference, that means they’re nearly four times as powerful as the 350kW units found at most UK service stations now. 

BYD has already deployed hundreds of its ‘Megawatt Flash Charging’ stations across China, and says it will eventually have more than 4,000 of them over there. We’ve been told by BYD’s executive vice president Stella Li, at least 200 to 300 of these will be installed in the UK by the end of next year.

In an exclusive interview with Auto Express, BYD’s UK country manager Bono Ge revealed the first of these cutting-edge new chargers will go live in the UK next year. “I'm working really hard on that, and hopefully by the end of Q1 2026 we’ll have a few set up, including here at our headquarters in Uxbridge,” he told us. 

Going from a few charging points to a few hundred is an ambitious project, however, and Denza will be utilising batteries to make its rapid chargers quicker and less expensive to install. Although that’s hardly surprising considering BYD has been making batteries for 30 years. 

“The challenge [with installing our rapid chargers] is upgrading your power supply, because we need to deliver one megawatt,” Ge explained.

“For example, our office here only comes with a 250 kilowatt power supply. If you want to deliver one megawatt, you have to upgrade the power grid, which probably would take us at least 12 months. Very likely 18 months to 24 months. That's something we don't want. 

“I think our solution will be to get batteries in between to store the energy needed. That way you don't need to upgrade your power supply and can install the charger much more swiftly. That will also make the cost reasonable.

Ge added that for Denza’s chargers “you only need to give us a space for a parking bay that's already good for the charger and energy storage together. We’ll have a low input, but you'll get a megawatt output”.

Being able to install its chargers faster and being cheaper than the competition will enable Denza to charge customers less to use them. “If we set up these things, we don't need to charge them 89p per kWh, we’ll probably only charge them 60p,” Ge added.

But rather than only allowing Denza buyers to use its chargers, Ge wants them to be open to all electric car owners, pointing to how Tesla’s Supercharger network is no longer exclusive to its customers. 

That said, no EV currently on sale can achieve close to the more than 1,000kW these units will be able to deliver. The all-electric version of Denza Z9GT luxury estate car, which is coming to the UK next year, is likely to be the first model capable of even coming close to those speeds. It’s possible the technology will eventually trickle down to a more affordable BYD vehicle, but that’s not been confirmed yet. 

However, Ge said: “We understand in the UK, a lot of customers are concerned about electric vehicles, about range. There's really two solutions. One is to put more batteries in the cars and the other one is to increase the charging speed. 

“More batteries is the direction some people are going down, but there is a limit on how many batteries you can carry, because you eventually want to develop a car to carry people, not carry batteries. So charging might be the better answer.”

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