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11 October 2022

Volvo Just Embarrassed Tesla

Will Lockett

When you think of cutting-edge, breakthrough, and industry-leading electric vehicles, you probably think of companies like Tesla, Lucid, Rivian, and maybe even Rimac. One company you definitely wouldn’t picture is Volvo. But in the background, Volvo has been making some significant advances that have not only allowed them to catch up to these EV titans but even exceed them. This recently became apparent when Volvo’s parent company, Geely, announced that they have 600 kW charging technology that will be hitting the road next year. This will allow their cars to obtain a whopping 186.41 miles of charge in only five minutes! But is this enough to eclipse Tesla?

Let’s start with some context. Tesla’s fastest charging cars peak at a rate of 250 kW and can secure 200 miles of charge in fifteen minutes. This means that Geely’s cars can charge nearly three times as fast as a Tesla!

So how has Geely been able to do this? Well, it’s all to do with their chargers and their new battery.

There is no point in building an EV capable of charging super quickly unless you have an equally fast supercharger. But it can be tough to develop high-speed chargers. This is because there are issues with thermal management, supply load, and safety, not to mention problems with manufacturing at scale.

Fortunately, Geely has an affiliate company called VREMT. They have not only been able to build a 600 kW charger but are ready to manufacture it at scale. Little is known about how they have managed to pull this off, but it means that Geely has the green light to build EVs with massive charging capabilities.

But EVs have similar problems when it comes to fast charging. The battery pack needs exceptional cooling to stop the batteries from overheating. The cell chemistry must also be designed to remain stable during high-power charging. Otherwise, their lifecycle will be severely reduced. But most batteries that meet these requirements have low energy densities, meaning that an EV using them will have a very limited driving range.

I wrote about the Qilin a while ago (click here for that article). But here is a quick overview. CATL, who is a battery supplier to companies like Tesla, wanted to build the ultimate EV battery. But rather than using large-format cylindrical cells like Tesla with their 4680 cells, they used racks of blade-like prismatic cells.

Prismatic” means the battery is contained inside a ridged housing and allows for much higher energy densities than cylindrical cells. This enables the Qilin to pack such a high energy density that they can easily stuff enough capacity into an EV to give it 600+ miles of range from a single charge. But these blades also have more surface area per cell than any other, which enables far more efficient cooling. They also have a very stable battery chemistry. These two aspects combined allow the Qilin battery to charge from 10% to 80% full in only ten minutes.

Volvo’s sister company Zeekr will be the first to implement this battery into their 001 car. I have already covered this fantastic vehicle previously (click here for that article), but let’s have another quick recap. The 001 has already been on sale in China since 2021, but uses a different battery pack. This version costs the equivalent of $48,000, has a 100 kWh battery pack, a range of 435 miles, and goes from 0–60 mph in only 3.8 seconds. Even the quality of the interior is fantastic and feels very Volvo-like.

This means that the current 001 is already thrashing Tesla for price, performance, range, and quality.

But in 2023, the Zeekr 001 will begin using the Qilin battery pack and be offered internationally in places like Europe, the US, and Canada. This updated model will have a massive 622 mile range and a 600 kW charging rate! We still don’t know how much it will cost, and we don’t yet know the cost per kWh of the Qilin battery. But even if this new car is $30,000 more expensive, it will still outstrip every other EV manufacturer in price, performance, and range.

It also seems like VREMT is ready to build vast numbers of their super fast 600 kW chargers and get them installed worldwide.

So soon, you will be able to buy an EV with a beautiful high-quality interior, decent luggage space, sports-car-like acceleration, 622+ miles of range, 186.41 miles of charge in only five minutes, and soon-to-be-widely-available rapid chargers. But this won’t cost $150,000+. Instead, it seems like it should only cost about $60,000+.

So that is how Volvo’s parent company, Geely, is embarrassing Tesla and every other EV giant. If I was Musk, I would be scrambling to either get their 4680 battery to charge at these rates or look to adopt the Qilin battery into their lineup. Otherwise, Teslas may soon seem outdated. And this isn’t beyond Tesla’s ability. After all, they are still using batteries from CATL in the Model S, X, and 3. But until Musk makes this switch, it seems that Geely will soon hold the technological advantage in the EV race.

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