EVwire brief: Geely's new 2.25-megawatt (MW) Smart Charging system, unveiled today, makes it the fastest of three Chinese automakers now racing to define what "flash charging" means for EVs.
BYD got there first. BYD launched its upgraded 1.5 MW Flash Charging network in March, and the company has announced that its megawatt charging is coming even to its affordable cars. However, on paper, Geely's Smart Charging system now claims the highest peak power and the shortest charging times of the three.
We covered Geely's 2.2 MW charging tech in our story here. For now, we compare three of the industry’s most impressive charging systems.
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Here's how all three now stack up, spec for spec:
Spec | Geely (Smart Charging) | BYD (Flash Charging) | XPeng (X-Energy) |
|---|---|---|---|
Peak power | 2.25 MW | 1.5 MW | 1 MW |
Platform voltage | 1,000V | 1,000V | 250V–1,000V |
Peak C-rate | 12C | 10C | 5C |
10% → 70% | 4 min 30 sec | 5 min | — |
10% → 97% | 8 min 40 sec | 9 min | — |
Range added (headline claim) | — | — | 450 km (280 mi) in 9 min |
Test / flagship model | Lynk & Co 10 / Zeekr 001 | Denza Z9GT / Yangwang U7 | Not named (“latest models”) |
Announcement | Sept 2026 | March 2026 (upgraded) | Sept 2026 |
Charging network | Geely Smart Charging (5th-gen) | BYD Flash Charging | X-Energy (Halo Energy, Hong Kong) |
Note the benchmarks aren't uniform: Geely and BYD measure 10%-70% and 10%-97%, while XPeng's own headline claim is framed as range added rather than a percentage (450 km in 9 minutes).
They're not perfectly apples-to-apples, but the gap in peak power alone tells most of the story.
Here’s how the chargers look:
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Context:
BYD kicked this race off in earnest on March 2025, when it launched its Super e-Platform and 1,000V architecture, charging to 400 km (about 250 miles) of range in five minutes. It doubled down on March 5, 2026, with a second-generation Blade Battery and an upgraded Flash Charging network, now peaking at 1.5 MW and promising 10% to 70% in five minutes and 10% to 97% in nine.
XPeng had already been quietly running 5C charging on the G9 since a prior update, though its numbers looked pedestrian once BYD's megawatt-class stations showed up. Geely formally unveiled Smart Charging today, which is the newest and, for now, the fastest, of the three.
The three systems aren't fully comparable in practice yet. BYD has the widest network already deployed, with more than 5,000 Flash Charging stations live domestically by mid-April and a target of 20,000 by the end of the year, plus an early push into Europe. Geely's network is brand new and limited to three models so far. Xpeng also just opened its first X-Energy megawatt flash-charging station in Hong Kong this month.
Source: Geely Auto Group and PR Newswire
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