• Startups and automakers are racing to build EV batteries that can charge in five minutes or less.
• Ultrafast batteries would solve one of the biggest issues customers have with EVs — charging times.
• Analysts say China's dominance in the battery industry means it is winning the race for five-minute charging.

Lengthy charging times are holding back the EV revolution, but that might be about to change.

Charging is frequently cited as one of the main reasons drivers are reluctant to go electric, with charging times in the US ranging from 20 minutes to 50 hours — far longer than it takes to simply fill up with gas.

But automakers and startups across the globe are now racing to build EV batteries that can charge in under 10 or even 5 minutes.

"It will change the entire customer experience," Ramesh Narasimhan, executive vice president at battery startup Nyobolt, told Business Insider.

"Charging would go from being an annoyance and requiring a downtime of 40 minutes to an hour, to having the same experience as what you have today in a fuelling situation," he added.

Developments over the past year suggest that dream is getting closer.

In August, Chinese Tesla rival Zeekr unveiled new batteries for its 007 sedan which it said were the world's fastest charging, able to charge from 10-80% in a little over 10 minutes.

Chinese battery giant CATL, meanwhile, unveiled its Shenxing Plus battery in April, which it said could provide 600km of range after 10 minutes of charging.

Rory McNulty, a product director at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, told BI that advances in battery chemistry and software design had allowed manufacturers like CATL to optimize their batteries for faster charging without damaging them.

He added that new battery designs, such as silicon-based and solid-state batteries, which are expected to hit the market in the next few years, will accelerate the move toward faster charging.

"We're on the cusp of introducing new materials, which intrinsically should charge quicker," McNulty said.

Nyobolt demoed its battery technology in a prototype EV in June. The battery successfully charged from 10% to 80% in four minutes and 37 seconds, achieving a range of 120 miles after four minutes.

The UK-based startup is in talks with eight companies about incorporating its technology into high-performance EVs, and Narasimhan said he hoped to see them in passenger cars by the end of the decade.

Fully charged

Rolling out ultrafast-charging EV batteries will not be without challenges.

Narasimhan told BI that automakers face a dilemma between building EVs with large batteries that can travel huge distances, or prioritizing smaller fast-charging batteries with less range.

"Carmakers are still struggling between fast charge versus energy density and having an oversized battery that can go a thousand miles," he said.

Narasimhan added that, as batteries are by far the most expensive part of an EV, smaller batteries would mean cheaper vehicles — the lack of which is another factor that has put off some consumers from going electric.

The other major hurdle is charging infrastructure. Batteries that can charge in 5-10 minutes require high-powered 350kw electric vehicle chargers to hit maximum charging speeds.

There are currently around 30,000 charging ports with a maximum output of 350kw or more in the US, according to Department of Energy statistics.

A study from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory released last year estimated the number of fast chargers will need to grow to around 182,000 by 2030 to support EV demand.

"Charging infrastructure is the next frontier," said McNulty.

"You can have the best battery in the world, it can charge in five minutes, but if your charging port or charging infrastructure doesn't have the capability to match that, then you're always going to be limited," he added.

China races ahead

One thing is almost certain: the first widespread ultrafast-charging EV batteries will likely be Chinese.

China dominates the global battery industry, with the likes of CATL, BYD, and Zeekr leading the way in building EV batteries with longer ranges and faster charging times.

"China's battery industry is 10 years ahead of its Western rivals. They built a whole infrastructure around batteries which is nigh-on impossible to replicate," Andy Palmer, a former Aston Martin and Nissan executive, often called "The Godfather of EVs," told Business Insider.

Much of China's success in battery manufacturing comes from its long-running industrial strategy, which has seen the government heavily subsidize local manufacturers over the past decade.

As a result, the East Asian superpower now has a stranglehold over the global battery supply chain. McNulty estimates that China dominates 95% of the global market for graphite, a key mineral for EV batteries.

China also has the advantage of scale. The Chinese market accounted for 60% of global EV registrations in 2023, per the IEA, and the country has rapidly built up its charging infrastructure to keep up with demand.

"The charging infrastructure bottlenecks that were a problem a couple of years ago are not anymore. You have fast chargers everywhere. I have probably 10 of them just around where I live," Cosimo Ries, a Shanghai-based analyst for Trivium China, told BI.

Ries added that the brutal competition in China's EV market was putting pressure on automakers to cut charging times and roll out fast-charging models at lower price points.

"The competition is so fierce; if you don't come up with faster charging batteries at cheaper prices, you're just not going to survive," Ries said.

"We're starting to see fast-charging move toward the kind of mid-tier or even lower-end segment of the markets. I think we're probably much closer to five-minute charging than previously expected, at least in China," he added.