Chinese automakers have been making waves of late, and Zeekr is prime among them. The company may now hold an auspicious title, that of having the fastest charging EV currently on the market.
Meet the Zeekr 7X. From the outside, it looks like so many other electric SUVs, with bulbous curves and fancy LED lighting elements. Ultimately, though, it’s what’s inside that makes the difference. We’re talking about the Golden Brick battery, which is key to the fast-charging capability that makes the 7X so special.
Zeekr has been developing the battery for some time, touting the battery’s ability to resist heat and cold without undue degradation. Most of all, though, it’s prized for its fast-charging ability—with the company claiming it can go from 10% to 80% in just 10.5 minutes. Now, recent testing seems to show it lives up to the hype.
Out of Spec Reviews recently took to YouTube to show off the Zeekr 7X and its prime party trick. Testing the vehicle in China, the team found the 7X was able fill its battery from 10 to 80% in nine minutes and 45 seconds. Going further, the vehicle was also available to achieve a 0 to 100% charge in approximately 22 minutes. It’s particularly impressive when you consider that a full charge in the 7X will net you 382 miles of range.
The team also provided a second video covering the charging process in detail. The team recorded a full charging curve during a 0 to 100% charge, noting a peak at 467 kW and sustained charging at over 400 kW. It’s full of grainy detail for the EV nerds out there, but the simpler figures come straight from the 7X’s itself—the display noted the vehicle was adding range at about 1,270 miles per hour. That’s not how we normally use “miles per hour”, but you get the idea.
Specifically, the Zeekr 7X boasts a very high charge rate—the company claims the Golden Brick battery can charge at 5.5C. C is short for capacity—basically, it refers to charging at a rate of 5.5 times the capacity of the battery. Multiply the Golden Brick’s capacity of 75 kWh by 5.5, and you get the peak power level it charges at—nominally, 412.5 kW. Obviously, as per the testing above, it’s able to peak a little higher than that, though this rate is not sustained for the full charge. Most notably, lithium batteries charge slower as they near 100%, which is why charge rates are so commonly compared from 10% to 80% instead.
While the 7X can charge very quickly, it’s worth noting that this isn’t always practical in the real world. For the testing above, Out of Spec Reviews had access to a mighty 840 kW charger owned by Zeekr—something you won’t easily find out in the wild. Most charging stations are lucky to top out at 350 kW or less. With that said, Zeekr has been doing the work to roll out more powerful chargers in China, with the company planning to have over 10,000 ultra-fast chargers up and running by 2026.
Zeekr is very proud of its battery, even throwing it in a fire to show off how robust it really is.
The Golden Brick relies on lithium iron phosphate cells, regarded as safer and more robust than other lithium-ion chemistries. They’re more stable and less likely to undergo dangerous thermal runaway, making it safer to push them to higher charge rates.
It also uses rectangular prismatic cells, rather than the cylindrical cells that have become more popular in the last decade of EV development. Notably, this allows the battery to achieve a strong volume utilization of 83.7%, according to CarNewsChina. In simpler terms, the rectangular cells pack together really nicely to make it remarkably space-efficient.
The Zeekr 7X and its Golden Brick battery are quite the engineering feat. The vehicle is set to hit the market in the summer of 2025, and should quickly find fans in China and beyond. Owners won’t necessarily be charging at 400-plus kilowatts on the regular, given commonly available infrastructure. Regardless, it’s yet another forward step for EV technology—one that will have rival automakers rushing to catch up.
Image credits: Zeekr, Out of Spec Reviews via YouTube screenshot
We are so far behind China it’s insane. Is this how the British felt watching the US surpass them?
It’s almost like governments backing innovation sees more innovation. Well shit, who could’ve seen that coming?
It’s probably more like watching Datsun and Honda show up here, then only realizing a decade later that they really were amazing cars. Even though the world is much more economically and even culturally homogeneous today (ie, harder to play up the racism angle), now we have an actual legislative barrier — tariffs and bans — to prevent this.
I’m pretty appalled. Put aside our pride and maybe just cede some (or all) of the American EV market to Chinese companies for the betterment of consumers and the environment. Put in place very strict rules around connectivity to ensure they can’t be used for cyber attacks, things like that. Start working on licensing and joint ventures with domestic brands.
We can keep China at arm’s length in a lot of ways, but this is one area where it’s just a no-brainer.
The environment? I’m not at all convinced that the 300 new EV companies in China are following good environmental practices on the manufacturing side.
And there’s also the issue of worker protections and working conditions. Which are non-existent and generally poor, respectively.
So sure… there’s rapid advancement… but it comes at a cost.
Such is the way of the human race. The world has historically been built on the backs of slave labor or glorified versions of it since the dawn of time.
I’m not saying it’s right but noting it’s how we’ve gotten to where we are now.
It’s great to see battery tech move forward.
Where I’d love to apply this, once we get to the point of excellent longevity in relation to charge/discharge cycles, is to run my house on the good battery tech.
Where I live, the overnight KWh rate is half the daytime rate. I’d love to charge at night and the run the house all day off stored energy.
Plus, it saves me in power outages. Add a few KWh worth of solar panels (I have a bungalow with 60 horizontal feet of roofline and a decent pitch) and I’d be pretty much energy independent.
It was the price and capability that kept me away from a battery, but I will never look back on my solar panels. My PowCo has ‘net metering’, so I make more than I use and can roll it over.
You probably won’t be energy independent. At least here in FL, you must remain connected to the grid and “sell” your solar energy back to the company. If you use less than you sell, you get a credit in the event that you use more. The batteries only kick on if you lose grid power – think of it as a whole-house generator. But you’d better hope the sun comes out if the outage lasts long enough to deplete your batteries.
Nothing a backup generator can’t fix. Bulk charge and shut it back down.
I have no desire to unhook my current house from the grid as most insurance and even mortgage lenders have stipulations for being connected to the grid.
But being energy independent in that I’m not consuming from the grid, and see no loss in usage of the house, even when the grid goes down.
Your idea works, but you’re correct – the “system” is set up to make it pretty much impossible to disconnect unless your house is paid for and you choose to self-insure.
Ontario just kicked off a whole litany of energy rebates I’m looking to cash in on. The less money I can give to utility companies, the better.
Have you seen the Copper induction stoves? They use a battery to let you operate on only a 120v outlet (a hurdle for people with gas appliances). And because of said battery they can preheat the oven to 375 in like 4 minutes! It’s also programmed to charge the battery overnight when rates are cheaper.
This feels like a pretty big deal in the real world adoption of EVs to me. Yes I realize that there likely aren’t 840kW chargers in the states yet but the fact that an EV can now realistically go from 10 to 80% in 10 minutes is impressive to me. Sure it only takes 5 to fill my gas tank but on a road trip once you add in a potty break you’re over 10 easily. I’m not saying I’m lining up to buy one quite yet but this is the first time I’ve read about an EV and said to myself, “hey, that might actually work out.”
What people aren’t accounting for with the “fill the gas tank” comparison is how you have to physically be there filling the tank, at least around me. A current EV with Plug and Charge, it’s 30 seconds at most to get out and plug in and another 30 seconds unplugging. On recent road trips on 250 kW chargers, my Tesla was done charging about 50% of the time before I was finished up walking the dogs or getting coffee or whatever. I bet it would be similar with a faster charging EV like the Hyundai/Kia offerings.
Great! But also blah, blah, blah. It 99%does not matter in the US market. China EV bad according to many. We’re getting our asses handed to us in the EV sector. Charging infrastructure is trash. We’re seemingly building to an increasingly outdated standard.
I maintain we are 20+ years from a meaningful switch to EV’s. Electric production capacity isn’t here. Delivery network isn’t here yet. Charging options aren’t even close to critical mass level.
I’m interested in EV’s but not willing to part with my money for one given the current state of things. I also like my gas cars.
I’m with you, and I don’t think it’s being cynical, it’s being realistic. Even if the electricity production capacity increases, it’s likely going to be sucked up by data centers (crypto, AI).
Catalytic converter thieves running out to buy new grinders.
If tweakers start trying to cut into EV batteries as a new lucrative sideline, we might just win the war on drugs by mistake.
Which do we think will get them first, 1000 amps to the heart, or the violent fire immediately afterwards?
And how many *840KW*(!) charging stations exist in the US? How many are planned? How much of a toll does doing that take on the battery if you do it more than occasionally?
In the meantime, my car can add 600 miles of range in less than five minutes literally anywhere in the country. And it’s paid for…
I’ve made this point before but it bears repeating.
A gallon of gas has ~34 kWh.
A gas pump flows at 10 GPM or 600 GPH.
That is some 20,000 kW of energy transfer.
400,800, whatever, it’s all basically a rounding error by comparison.
Exactly why I can’t get all that excited about any of this.
If I really cared about efficiency I’d buy a used Prius, not an EV.
You have to factor in that the vast majority of electrical energy used in charging gets used for EV propulsion (charging / discharging efficiency is probably north of 90% these days, and driveline losses are less than most combustion vehicles), whereas when you look at the LHV of gasoline only about 1/3 of that energy is available for vehicle propulsion, while most is just going to be turned into heat (depends on engine thermal efficiency and driveline losses of course). So to be a fair comparison you probably need to cut that gas pump power value in half, if not take 1/3 of it. But still, pumping liquid allows you to flow a lot more “power” than moving electricity and storing it chemically in a battery. It still seems surmountable for the passenger car market especially when most people are able to L1/L2 charge overnight and use DC fast charging sparingly. For fast charging class 8 trucks though the numbers get really crazy, like to the point where truck stop companies may want to invest in some of these nuclear energy startups.
It’s not meant to be a direct comparison because as you say there are big differences in efficiency, but it is a good reference for the scale of energy that can be moved quickly with liquid fuels.
I’m encouraged by this progress in recharge times and hope to see further improvements coming.
Doesn’t need an 840KW, just a 400KW, and they’re coming, Tesla has them, IONNA which is GM/Stellantis/Hyundai-Kia/Honda/BMW/Mercedes is using them in their new stations. Also no oil changes, spark plugs, timing chains, just drive the thing.
Lithium Iron Phosphate is a better chemistry than Nickel Cobalt Maganese, you can charge to 100% without increased degradation, and it can handle fast charging better, and it’s cheaper.
It’s still more expensive and less useful than the car I already have. And the car is inevitably boring. <shrug>
“I can feed my horse off the hay from my fields! Ain’t no ‘gas stations’ around here.”
Technology advances, this is a great advancement.
That would be true if an EV was as great an advancement as the car was over a horse. Horses *sucked*. A Model T was a quantum leap over a horse. An EV is a just a more expensive car with different strengths and weaknesses. If you want efficiency, buy a used Prius and drive less.
Put 30 miles of EV range into a PHEV with this tech and I might be interested, if anyone could make such a car these days that doesn’t suck in terms of user interface.
It’s not sold in the US, the article doesn’t mention anything about the US, it doesn’t matter how many there are in the US. It’s a Chinese car which will be mainly sold in China, where they are working on the infrastructure as stated in the article.
It’s a technological breakthrough. The fact that you’re not directly affected by it doesn’t make it less relevant. We’re also not likely to see much investment in EV’s or infrastructure before the end of this decade anyway, so let China figure this stuff out and we can iterate upon it in, I don’t know, four years or so?
Yes, I quite realize that this is not sold in the US. Thus there is really no need to get so breathlessly excited about it.
So why mention the lack of charging infrastructure in the US for this technology? You recognize it won’t be sold here, and thus these chargers aren’t necessary. Just needed to get some US defaultism out?
Why breathlessly report on something that is irrelevant to the vast majority of the audience here?
Wake me up when this is available reality.
The world is a big place, Kevin. It’s not just about you.
8am, month after Christmas; check CarGurus on a lark
I search EVs, both new and used ones
The same old models, I am….numb
Sort by deals, just Fair to High-priced
Interest rates are still too much
My mom and dad refuse to cosign
I check Chinese cars on a hunch
They’ve got Bricks while I’m charging slowly?!
And all these tariffs block their sale!
They got Bricks and we’re charging slowly…
Well done!
Slow clap…
So that’s it then, adding 300 miles in 10 minutes, gas vehicle fueling parity achieved, now just need more 400KW stations and we’re done.
On to the next complaint, they all look like amorphous blobs, fix it!
I’m starting to worry we’re at this strange point where 90s retro-blobbiness and objectively good aerodynamics are intersecting. And I’m not liking it. I referred to Tesla yesterday as a “portfolio of suppositories, plus one kidney stone” and I stand by it.