This world’s first mass-produced 800 V LFP battery can apparently charge at up to 500 kW.
While many in the auto industry are currently banking on solid-state batteries as being the next big leap for EVs, Zeekr however may now have since put all that hype with this upcoming innovation to rest. Such is because this offshoot of Geely has recently revealed its new Golden Battery, with the headline figure being that it can achieve a 10-80% state of charge in just 15 minutes.
Billed as the world’s first mass-produced 800 V lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery to offer ultra-fast charging capability, Zeekr’s new in-house developed Golden Battery apparently has a claimed peak charging power of 500 kW. An almost incredulous figure when considering that the best charging rates is currently only 350 kW with the Hummer EV pickup, which hence does certainly bolster the Chinese automaker’s headline claim of (when charging at peak output at least) being able to add 500 km of range to its Zeekr 007 in that 15 minute span.
And while on the topic of the Zeekr 007, what is perhaps most incredulous about this Golden Battery is that it is not actually to be some far out idea. But instead, a 75.6 kWh version of it will be providing up to 668 km of driving range on in its aforementioned flagship fastback when it launches come the 27th of December.
What more is that with Zeekr being under the Geely corporate umbrella, there is already apparently plans that this Golden Battery might make its way into other brands within the conglomerate. So who knows that there may one day soon be a Proton that is faster than a Porsche, in terms of charging speed anyway…
Now aside from its headline-grabbing charging speed, Zeekr has also touted for its Golden Battery to currently be the benchmark in volume utilisation. Owing to its sandwich structure construction (where there lies a thin separators between each of the cell modules and an integrated tray design) the Chinese automaker is able to proclaim for its utilisation rate of 83.7% to be currently surpass the prior record holding 72.0% of CATL’s nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) Qilin battery.
Zeekr has further promoted too that its Golden Battery is ‘super safe’, which it demonstrates by showing that the pack did not catch fire or explode after 240 seconds of sustained fire at 700ºC. As for the other end of the temperature spectrum meanwhile, the battery was shown to still be functional after exposing it to the extreme cold of -45ºC for eight hours.
Other torture tests performed by the Chinese automaker involved to be subjected to immersion under water for 48 hours and as well as being dragged through mud for a distance of 3 km, to prove its IPX8 water resistance. Zeekr had also driven a 22-tonne roller over the battery as well as dropping it from a crane at a height of 10 metres, with the pack managing to not catch fire or explode from the force of impact.
The development of this Golden Battery is among the measures being pursued by Zeekr (and to an extent Geely) to lower manufacturing costs and reliance on outside suppliers. Produced at Geely’s battery factory in Quzhou, Zhejiang, this new battery claims to offer manufacturing cost savings of up 14.8%.
