BYD unveils flagship 600 km electric truck with 1.5 MW charging

BYD showed off a new electric semi truck, the ETT 44, at a trade show in Germany. It's built for heavy freight loads up to 44 tonnes and offers up to 600 km (about 373 miles) of range from its battery. The real headline is charging speed: on a fast public charger it can go from 20% to 80% battery in about an hour, but on BYD's own ultra-fast charging system, capable of delivering 1.5 megawatts of power, that same charge takes roughly 20 minutes.

This isn't really a story about your house or car, since these are commercial trucks. But it's a useful signal about where fast-charging technology is headed. BYD has been rapidly building out this same "megawatt charging" approach for its passenger EVs too, installing thousands of these ultra-fast chargers recently and planning more. As that charging hardware becomes more common and cheaper to produce, some of it may eventually filter down into faster home and public charging options for regular electric cars.

The bigger picture: European truck makers like Volvo, Daimler, and Scania are also racing to build electric heavy trucks, but BYD's advantage is that it makes the truck, the battery, and the charger itself, rather than relying on outside charging networks. Whether European regulators, wary of relying on Chinese technology and already imposing tariffs on Chinese EVs, will allow BYD's trucks to gain a foothold remains an open question.