EVwire brief: BYD has demonstrated a robotic version of its Flash Charging station in the United Arab Emirates, with an arm that plugs an EV in and unplugs it without any help from the driver.
The robotic arm uses visual recognition and force-feedback control to find the charging port, open its cover, insert the connector and remove it once charging is done. It supports several connector standards used in markets outside China. The station itself pairs photovoltaic panels and battery energy storage with high-power charging equipment, and it reportedly reached 1,000 kW during the UAE demonstration.
BYD also showed a one-tap automated parking and charging function. With it, a compatible vehicle drives itself into the charging space, after which the robotic arm connects the charger with no driver input.
Here's a look at the robotic arm in action, as shared by ThinkerCar on X:
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There is one small, rather humorous catch. In the footage, the arm takes over 40 seconds just to plug in. With BYD's Flash Charging taking a compatible battery from 10% to 70% in about five minutes, that means the robot could spend a sizable chunk of the stop on the handshake alone, and that's before it unplugs. Hopefully, BYD's engineers have a faster arm in the works, or drivers might find themselves reaching for the cable after all.
BYD has been developing automated charging robots for several years, starting with systems for automated guided vehicles (AGVs) before moving to passenger cars. Previously published BYD patents also describe robots that can check a vehicle's battery level and tire pressure, find tire valves and inflate tires, all without modifications to the vehicle. BYD has not said when the robotic charger will be commercially available or how much it will cost.
The charger flew somewhat under the radar at BYD's media event in the UAE, which was dominated by the Yangwang U9 Xtreme setting a production car speed record of 503.17 km/h (312.66 mph), which BYD announced on November 6. The same weekend, BYD also unveiled the Yangwang Altior luxury sedan, priced from 2.08 million yuan (about US$311,500).
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Context:
The robotic charger is the latest step in BYD's push to take Flash Charging beyond China. In March 2026, BYD introduced its second-generation Blade Battery alongside charging that peaks at 1,500 kW per connector, taking a compatible battery from 10% to 70% in five minutes and from 10% to 97% in nine minutes. BYD is targeting 20,000 Flash Charging stations in China by the end of 2026, and it plans to have 100 flash chargers in Europe by the end of this year and 3,000 by the end of 2027.
BYD isn't the only Chinese company working on chargers that plug themselves in, either. Geely's fifth-generation Smart Charging station, which peaks at 2,250 kW, comes with a robotic charging arm of its own, while Geely brand Zeekr showed a charging robot at CES 2025. Huawei, for its part, unveiled a robotic arm on its 600 kW supercharger in January 2025 that plugged in a Maextro S800 after the sedan parked itself next to the station.
Source: CarNewsChina
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