Oil giant rips out gas pumps for BYD’s 1,500 kW EV chargers

In Shanghai, China's largest fuel retailer, Sinopec, pulled the gas pumps and underground fuel tanks out of one of its stations and replaced them with EV chargers built by automaker BYD. The site now runs six of BYD's "T"-shaped fast chargers, laid out where the pumps used to be, offering 12 charging spots. BYD rates these chargers at up to 1,500 kilowatts on a compatible car, fast enough to go from 10 to 70 percent charge in about five minutes.

The trick is that the chargers don't pull that much power straight from the electric grid, which would normally require a costly substation-level connection. Instead, each charger is backed by battery packs that store power gradually and then release it in a fast burst to the car. The station only draws about 100 kW from the grid to keep those batteries topped off. This is the first site built under a broader partnership Sinopec and BYD signed in June, and Sinopec says it plans similar conversions at other stations. Sinopec operates more than 30,000 fuel stations in China, so the approach could scale quickly.

None of this changes what's available at a US home right now, since the 1,500 kW charging speed only works with cars built for it, and none of those are sold outside China yet. For home EV charging in the US, standard equipment and charging speeds are unaffected by this news.