BYD Seal 08 debuts with Blade Battery 2.0: 1,000km range, 5-min charging, 684hp

aurareturn

$42,000 for 1,000KM of range and 684hp. That's just ridiculously a good deal.

nhinck2

Can you just add power from the front and rear wheels like that?

lschueller

Meanwhile in Germany: Let's stick to combustion engines for at least 10 more years with 500km range and a multiple of energy and maintenance costs...

ranguna

How much will it cost in Europe and how did they manage to fit so much energy into their battery pack?

himata4113

That's not a battery, that's a reusable bomb. Good thing they also figured out how to keep them from having runaway reactions.

kilroy123

I believe Elon is taking SpaceX public because he knows that Tesla is cooked. The Chinese have already won. They're pumping out cars for $10,000, 1,000 km range, and at jaw-dropping scale. He knows Tesla is on borrowed time.

askl

Nice to see innovation in the EV market. Meanwhile legacy EV maker Tesla continues doing nothing other than silly toy projects. (Or rather hyping up silly toy projects and actually doing nothing at all)

swiftcoder

I can't wait till they stuff the same battery in a down-market car. Would really like to see a >750km contender in the €30k range one of these days

ZeroGravitas

There's a big Chinese auto show happening this week so there's a lot of announcements. The same site has an overview post: https://electrek.co/2026/04/26/beijing-auto-show-2026-insane... > In a single hall at the show, there were more EV models on display than there are available ones in the entire United States. There are 17 halls at this show. Seventeen. And they all have more EVs than the US market. > The show features 1,451 vehicles, including 181 world premieres and 71 concept cars, sprawling across a record-breaking 380,000 square meters of exhibition space at two venues. It’s now the largest auto show in the world — and it’s not even close.

metalman

Flagship killer.

khriss

China seems to be either leaving the US behind, or within striking distance in every single technology for the future. Looking back, I wonder if we will see this period as similar to what the 1957 Suez crisis did to the UK. Edit: Spelling

maxglute

The real news is BYD is making blade2, and flash charging (10m - 97%) standard going forward, i.e. all models all price points will recharge as fast as filling gas tank. The flash charging network supposedly also open to all compatible vehicles (probably some sort of titration on older batteries). Once blade2 proliferate, flash charging throughput = can convert many small lots, i.e. convenience stores into recharge stations like gas stations. I think flash charging infra basically just has a fuckload of old blade batteries drip charging from existing electric infra, so no need for major grid overhaul = the station in box charging infra almost anywhere (i.e. if grid supports heavy industrial AC, it can support flash cabinets) is going to be as big as charging time. E: @10m charge per car, the system basically is scaled to typical gas tank up transaction times, i.e. 10-12m per car. The battery storage sized to survive rush hour throughput then charge off grid or roof solar during lull. Basically parity with gas infra. The plan is also to second life old batteries, i.e. 60-70% capacity blade1s... lots of 1st gen bats retiring, storage is going to be essentially "free" via upcycling. AKA entire battery circular economy PRC mandated recently. The last part is what makes BYD so cracked, IIRC central gov legislated extended producer responsibility recently, i.e. BYD (largest battery producer) legally had to take back and recycle batteries - cradle to grave responsibility, instead of billions in logistics for storing/recycling/shredding they're just slapping them in flash stations to increase deprecation cycle.

cjs_ac

The 400 km in 5 minutes figure relies on finding a charger that can consistently deliver 1 MW; a prominent UK YouTuber just reported being unable to find a public charger that can consistently exceed 100 kW in all the years he's been testing electric cars. As much as I think that electric cars are the future - and my next car will be one - there's a lot of infrastructure that needs to be put in place and improved before they can reach their advertised potential, just as there was for petroleum-powered cars.