Varnika Agarwal

Fast charging for electric vehicles (EVs) is increasingly driving battery degradation, as consumer anxiety and infrastructural constraints are refocusing charging station installations for speed. By 2039, Benchmark’s EV Charging Service expects the majority of new global charging station installations to be fast charge (>22kW AC or DC). Charging speed has increasingly become a point of competition between OEMs, as demonstrated by BYD’s recent Blade 2 announcement, which advertised a five-minute charging speed from 10% to 70% and nine minutes from 10% to 97%.

BYD may be using lithium iron manganese phosphate (LMFP) cells for its new Blade 2.0 battery platform, unveiled earlier in March, though it has yet to officially declare which chemistry will be used.  A key advantage of the new platform is support for “flash charging” which BYD claims can charge the battery from 10% to 70% in just five minutes when connected to its new 1,500kW charging system.  BYD’s patent activity related to manganese-doped phosphate systems alongside reported improvements in energy density, and reference to a 3.8V operating voltage all point towards BYD using LMFP in the platform.  If BYD does use LMFP for Blade 2.0, Benchmark calculates that this could increase 2026 battery-grade manganese demand by 7%.

The new generation of BYD’s Blade battery has come later than expected with the improvement in energy density falling short compared to some rival technologies. The design instead targets faster charging as a differentiator to win over consumers.