Huawei one-ups the competition with 1.5 MW Supercharger with robotic arm
Huawei's CEO of the Digital Power division has teased a 1.5 MW electric vehicle charger, beating both BYD's 1 MW piles, and Zeekr's newly announced 1.2 MW charging stations.
The BYD system, however, is aimed at passenger vehicles, and it has developed the batteries and powertrain to match, while Huawei's 1.5 MW charger is for trucks like the Tesla Semi, or other heavy-duty commercial equipment.
Tesla's own V4 Supercharger stations are rated for 500 kW output when they charge passenger vehicles, but can deliver up to 1.2 MW charging speeds to the Semi, too.
Huawei tops that with a liquid-cooled system that allows for the whopping 2,400 A current to pass through and charge a battery from zero to 100% capacity in just 15 minutes. The new Huawei megacharger will be launched on April 22, and will be able to restore 20 kWh of battery capacity per minute when plugged in.
Speaking of plugging, Huawei already demonstrated a robotic arm that can be retrofitted on its EV chargers and plug the connector into the charging port without the driver ever leaving the vehicle.
The charger actually delivers 1.44 MW output, but Huawei rounds up and calls it a Super Charge system, without trying to hide whose network it is targeting.
At the China Electric Vehicle 100 conference, where Huawei teased the new megawatt charger, it also detailed its reasoning for investing in such a network. There will be more than 30 trucks with 4C (15-minute) speed technology launching in 2025 alone, so Huawei wants to be at the forefront of commercial electric vehicle charging developments.
When it announces the 1.5 MW system on April 22, Huawei will also list a schedule for the mass production of the stations, as well as the heavy-duty truck or construction equipment brands it has partnered with for the network.
"For heavy-duty trucks to be fully electrified, the charging time must be under 30 minutes," said Huawei's Hou Jinlong at the forum. Other competing projects in the commercial electric vehicle charging field aim for the same 30-minute window.
These range from the 1.2 MW Tesla V4 Superchargers and 3.75 MW MCS standard stations, to the custom 6 MW system aimed to power the 1.9 MWh battery of the 240-ton Liebherr T 264 haul trucks in the open pits of Fortescue's Pilbara ore mines.
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