9-Minute Charging Sounds Great…But Is It Practical? 

By Jerry Denman | April 2026

 

The BYD ultra-fast charger has been all over the news, 9 minutes to a full charge. It’s a very impressive engineering accomplishment.

Massive Power Drain: The BYD solution is a 1.5mW charger and from what I have read, that is per port. So, two ports is 3wW. Most fast charge stations have four ports which are now up to 6mW. To put that in perspective that is enough power for 5,000 homes assuming they are using the average energy footprint of 1.2kW per home. That kind of power isn’t available just anywhere and may only be available in highly commercial areas. If that’s true, then drivers wanting to use these stations will have to travel to where the station is. That may be on their way to where they are going but I think more likely not. Also, the number of places where that much power is available is limited so the number of stations will be limited to those locations.

XLR8's "Charge Where You Go" Strategy: So that brings up the difference in strategy between BYD’s vision of public EV charging and the one we have at XLR8 America. Our strategy is to place chargers where people are going to be. We call that “Charge where you park, not park where you charge.” We place our public charging sites at restaurants (quick serve and sit down), parking garages (public and private), hotels, shopping centers and other locations where a driver would normally be in the course of their day. They plug in while they are doing something else. This makes charging a background activity and not something the driver has to make a special stop to do.

Location, Location, (No) Location: I can’t see how a solution like BYD can be installed in these common locations. The power isn’t there. We often struggle to get power for a 4 port 350kW site so a site that would draw almost 17 TIMES that much power would be out of the question.

Space Issues Too: It’s also a matter of space. The switch gear has to be close to the transformer and the charging ports. Looking at pictures of the switchgear, they published it looks like it would take up at least one if not two parking spaces. In a dense commercial area like a parking garage, a hotel or a restaurant that is valuable space.

Seriously Expensive Installation: Installation costs are also a factor. The cost of the wire for our 350kw stations can be as high as $88 a foot. Installation costs can get prohibitively expensive over longer distances and by longer, I mean just a hundred feet. Multiple that cost by the 17x power requirements and it is close to $1500 a foot. Add in the cost of switch gear for that kind of power which could be close to $3M, not including the cost of the chargers or labor. That is a very serious investment that would have to see a high utilization rate to be profitable.

Incentives Won't Help: Incentives aren’t likely to help since most incentive programs cap at 100K per port which is just a fraction of the per port costs of these stations. This could change but I don’t see many government or non-government organizations wanting to spend millions on incentives for a 4 port charging station which is what it would take to subsidize these stations at the same level 350kW stations are today.

Demand Charges are a "Silent Killer": For a 6mW EV charging installation, demand charges can be a silent killer. A 6MW spike for just 15 minutes can trigger a monthly bill of $90,000 to $150,000 (assuming $15–$25 per kW) before you’ve even sold a single kilowatt-hour. These demand charges are becoming more common as utilities try to reduce load during critical periods. One of our sites incurred a demand charge that was several times the cost of the actual power used and this was on a small Level 2 installation. In order to mitigate this, a battery storage system would be needed to even out the demand by charging when power is low and discharging when power costs are higher. This system adds even more cost with a typical installation costing $2M or more plus annual costs to maintain.

Profitability is a Question Mark: Profitability is also a key factor. We typically want to see a minimum usage of 12% on 350kW stations to get an acceptable return on investment. These stations cost is truly 17 times as much but only reduces the plugged in charge time by 70%. Utilization would have to be 18% or higher to see a 3-year ROI. That is 50% higher average utilization of a DCFC charger today. Additionally, the charge time may be 10 minutes but the time for the drive to park, connect, charge, disconnect and leave is going to be at least double that. 18% utilization is 4.4 hours a day so double that to roughly 9 hours a day the plug is occupied. I think that would lead to wait times which would extend the total charge time, exactly what this solution is trying to reduce. I have problems seeing how these stations would be profitable without impacting the customer experience they are meant to solve.

Why There Will Be Fewer of Them: It boils down to power availability, space for equipment, high installation costs, and a much longer path to making money.

Is it practical for the US Market? I don’t think so. I think the customer experience will not improve and may even be worse. If the customer has to travel to the charging station instead of the station being where they are already parked, that will increase the actual time to charge. If the customer charge time drops from 30 minutes to 10 and it takes them an extra 20 minutes to travel to the charger there is no net gain and even worse, a negative change. If they have to wait for a charger then the experience is impacted more. If they charge where they go, then it is a background operation that takes just minutes of their time to plug in and go about their business.

Our point of view: 9 min charges are impressing but charging where you park is just easier.