Ultra-rapid EV charging is a gimmick, but I'd still rather charge my car in nine minutes than 10

BYD has demoed its much heralded Flash Charging system in the UK. Next comes an ambitious roll-out plan that will see these battery-assisted, 1.5-megawatt chargers popping up around the country with the promise of never-before-seen charging speeds for EV owners. 

Give or take, Flash Charging is four times quicker than the fastest EV chargers you’ll currently see while out and about in the UK. That means a typical full charge on a big-battery EV could take nine minutes or less.  

We’re getting into the realms of EV charging timescales equalising with those for a traditional fill-up with petrol – albeit one where you also get £30 out of the cash machine and spend three minutes battling your conscience while browsing the chocolate bar rack. 

But it’s all just a gimmick. Nobody is going to turn down the opportunity to perform a menial task like refuelling a car more quickly, all other things being equal, but ultra-rapid charging isn’t going to transform the EV experience for owners. 

With modern EVs easily offering 300-mile driving ranges in the real world and some nudging 500 miles in the official tests, the scenario where you need to add an 80 per cent charge to your battery in double-quick time just doesn’t present itself for the vast majority of drivers. You might need another 50 miles of range to reach your destination, but you can already add that in a few minutes at a standard rapid charger. The beauty of EVs is that our cars sit idle for 95 per cent of the time and that is the perfect opportunity to change them.

The name might not exactly inspire confidence – the last thing I want to see when plugging a 1,500kW cable into my electric car is a ‘flash’ – but BYD’s Flash Charging stations can contribute to removing one of the bigger barriers to EV adoption. The resistance to change is strong in the Great British public and the idea of charging an EV in the same amount of time needed to fill a petrol tank is reassuring and seductive, even if the practical value is questionable. 

All this brings us to the bigger announcement that was somewhat drowned out by the Chinese brand’s high-voltage conjuring act and actually gets to the nub of the problem with EV charging in the UK. The Government has announced a review into the cost of electric car charging. Rather than speed, it’s the price of public charging that is stopping thousands more people from accessing the benefits of EVs and it’s about time that something was done about it.

BYD is proposing to offer its Flash Charger network at a price of 50p per kWh to owners of its cars, but admits that the price of getting access to suitable locations at garages, supermarkets and service stations may be prices that are equalised with rapid charger networks that are already there. This means paying up to around the UK average price for rapid charging of around 80p per kWh. 

This is the inequality of EVs. Much has been done by manufacturers to increase choice and improve range. The EV Grant, and competition from Chinese brands such as BYD, has cut prices. Yet, if you can charge at home you might pay around 26p per kWh on the current price cap or 8p per kWh overnight on a special EV tariff. 

The cost of charging an electric car for people without access to home chargers is the real problem, not the speed at which a full charge can be pumped into the giant 122kWh battery of a £100k, four-door GT. 

In urban areas, where the air quality benefits of EVs could be most keenly felt, people without private parking are being prevented from making the switch because of the cost and inconvenience of the public network. 

The Government’s review puts a range of options on the table to potentially fix this, from extra funding to tougher regulation. The powers that be have been reluctant to look at cutting VAT on charging, but action is needed to make sure fuelling an EV is cheaper than fuelling a petrol car for everyone, whether they have a driveway at home or not. Compared with that, ultra-fast charging is just a ‘nice to have’.

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