This guest editor article was written by Diego Pareschi. Diego is an executive in the EV charging space, with over 15 years of international experience across Europe, Americas, Middle-East and Asia. He recently joined BYD as Director of EV charging, where the development and rollout of BYD’s next-generation Flash Charging technology.
Prior to BYD, Diego held multiple global leadership roles at ABB and ABB e-Mobility, where he was responsible for the DC charging product lines that were deployed in 97 countries worldwide.
2025 was a step forward for ultra-rapid EV charging
In March, BYD presented the Flash Charging technology to the world. This announcement immediately attracted worldwide attention, not only for the headline figures, but because it challenged a long-standing pattern in the electric-vehicle industry.
Over the past decade, many claims of “record-breaking” charging times have been made. In most cases, these announcements were tied to experimental battery chemistries, laboratory prototypes, or concept vehicles that were years away from mass production – if they ever reached it at all. In other cases, ultra-high-power charging systems were presented in isolation by charger manufacturers, without a corresponding vehicle platform capable of fully exploiting that power.
What makes BYD’s Flash Charging fundamentally different is that it is not a single technological breakthrough, but a fully integrated solution spanning the entire value chain; vehicle platform, battery, and charging infrastructure, engineered together to deliver an ultra-fast charging experience in real-world conditions.
The result is a charging experience whose duration is comparable to refuelling a conventional internal-combustion vehicle. Yet, while the time parity with ICE refuelling is striking, it would be a mistake to assume that the charging experience should simply replicate the petrol-station model.
A decade of fast-charging deployment has taught the industry an important lesson: the best locations for EV charging are not the same as traditional fuel stations, and the user experience should not be either. Drivers are not looking for poorly lit, utilitarian spaces. Even when dwell times are short, they value well-designed environments, safety, lighting, and access to amenities. Ultra-fast charging does not eliminate the need for quality, it raises the bar for it.
Building the Flash Charging Network
To unlock the full potential of Flash Charging, BYD has made a strategic decision to invest directly in infrastructure by creating the Flash Charging Network: a global, megawatt-level charging network designed to support Flash-charging-capable vehicles at scale.
Over recent months, BYD has announced planned coverage across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. The first sites are scheduled to become operational in the first half of 2026, with rapid expansion to achieve broad geographic coverage by the end of the year.
This naturally raises a critical question: how can a charging network reliably deliver megawatt-level performance when many operators today struggle to install chargers that can deliver more than few hundreds kilowatt in most sites?
The answer lies in BYD’s DNA, deep vertical integration and energy-system expertise. Every Flash Charging system is equipped with a high-performance battery energy storage system, using the same Blade Battery technology found in BYD vehicles. Rather than relying on a massive grid connection, each site draws a comparatively modest amount of power from the grid to recharge its internal storage between sessions. When a vehicle plugs in, the system releases, or “flashes”, that stored energy directly into the car at extremely high power.
This architecture fundamentally decouples charging performance from grid constraints. It also allows Flash Charging sites to be deployed in locations that would otherwise be impossible to electrify at megawatt scale. While the system is compatible with CCS-equipped vehicles from other manufacturers, only BYD vehicles currently support these power levels, an advantage that reflects the tight integration between vehicle and infrastructure.
Redefining Charging Economics and Design
Flash Charging does more than reduce charging time; it reshapes several foundational assumptions of public charging.
Traditional metrics such as charger utilization rates become less meaningful when sessions last only a few minutes. Instead, performance is better measured in sessions per day or total kilowatt-hours delivered. High turnover becomes the defining characteristic of successful sites which are financially viable.
This has direct implications for site design. Flash Charging locations must be engineered to accommodate rapid vehicle flow, not long dwell times. In high-traffic environments, drive-through layouts are not a convenience—they are a necessity. Vehicles must be able to enter, charge, and exit seamlessly, without bottlenecks or complex manoeuvres.
From an operational perspective, Flash Charging represents a shift from static infrastructure to dynamic energy management. The charger is no longer just a grid endpoint; it is an active energy system, balancing grid intake, battery storage, and vehicle demand in real time.
A New Phase for Electric Mobility
Flash Charging is not simply about making charging faster. It is about removing one of the final psychological and practical barriers to mass EV adoption, while redefining how charging infrastructure is planned, built, and operated.
As this technology moves from announcement to deployment, the industry will need to rethink benchmarks, business models, and design principles that were shaped in a very different charging era. The rollout of the Flash Charging Network marks the beginning of that transition, from incremental improvement to a step change in how electric mobility is experienced.
For BYD, this is not an experiment or a concept. It is a commitment to deliver the best and most frictionless experience to its drivers, by focusing on what is important: getting to the final destination, by turning the charging experience into a fast (and pleasantly forgettable) part of the journey.
