The battle for size and capacity is well and truly under way. Last month, Chinese car and battery giant BYD announced a game-changer for the EV industry with its 1,000 kW charging system that it says will add 400 km of range in just 5 minutes – about the same time it takes to fill a fossil fuel car.
Less than a fortnight later, another Chinese car maker Zeekr has set a new benchmark and announced that it will launch the world’s first 1,200 kW charging station with liquid-cooled charging.
According to reports from China, Zeekr Technology Group Vice President Zhao Yuhui announced the latest version of its fast-charging system at China’s EV100 Forum in Beijing.
The latest generation of Zeekr Power chargers will have the highest peak power delivery per plug, which will be the start of Megawatt charging for passenger EVs.
Zeekr currently operates 1,500 charging stations in China and has plans to expand that network to over 10,000 by the end of next year.
This is quite a milestone given that the company officially began operating in 2021 and sits under the Geely Holding Group.
#Zeekr will launch the world's first fully liquid-cooled charging pile, delivering a single-gun peak power output of 1.2MW. pic.twitter.com/FJAGv4HAjs
— ThinkerCar (@thinkercar) March 30, 2025
Up until recently, Zeekr 7X electric SUV model, which is Australia-bound in the second half of 2025, has achieved a fast-charging time of under 10 minutes, the fastest in the world.
In a real-world charging test, Kyle, a YouTuber from the US, did a charging test in which charging speeds approached 470 kW at a Zeekr Power charging station, helping the car get from 0-70% in under 10 minutes.
In the same test, charging from 10 to 80% was achieved in under 10 minutes as well, with charging speeds of 250 kW still seen even at that high state of charge.
That particular test took around 20 minutes for the car to charge from 0-100% at the Zeekr Power charging site in Ningbo, with a rated output of 800 kW of available power across its dispensers.
The latest announcement with the latest generation of Zeekr Power charging stations will ramp things up from 800 kW to 1,200 kW, outpacing BYD’s recently unveiled 1,000 kW charging system.
In January 2025, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the company announced its plans to build a Zeekr-branded charging network globally, starting with Australia as one of its key initial markets.
Back to the latest announcement, Zeekr aims to have the official launch for the new 1,200 kW liquid-cooled charging system in Q2 of 2025.
More on the technical specifications and initial locations of these charging stations is likely to be released closer to the official launch.
It’s good to see quite a bit of an improvement in charging technology and the battery technology itself.
With many more ultra-fast-charging vehicles being developed, such as the Zeekr 7X, it’s only a matter of time before fast-charging solutions offer a faster charging time than filling up an ICE vehicle in Australia.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.