BYD’s megawatt flash-charging network handled 1.22 million sessions in China’s Golden Week

BYD’s Megawatt Flash-Charging network handled more than 1.22 million vehicle charging sessions for over 540,000 users during China’s National Day holiday, October 1 to 7, according to the company’s holiday travel report released on October 9.

The peak figures show what holiday-scale load looks like: a record 188,344 vehicles were served in a single day. One charging gun handled 74 vehicles in a day, delivering 4,069 kWh. The busiest highway stations handled 144, 143 and 130 sessions in a day; the busiest urban stations recorded 160, 151 and 150. BYD says its flash-charging setup can take a vehicle from 10% to 97% in nine minutes — a company-reported figure, tied to its second-generation Blade Battery and flash chargers.

As of October 7, the network comprised 12,165 flash-charging stations across 341 Chinese cities, including 2,111 along highways.

NIO Power set holiday records of its own. From October 1 to 7, its 9,567 charging and battery-swapping stations nationwide delivered more than 2 million charging and swapping services, including 1.19 million battery swaps — up 22% year-on-year. On their respective busiest days, a single NIO battery-swap station completed roughly three times as many services as a BYD flash-charging station, a comparison that underlines the throughput advantage of swapping against even ultra-fast charging.

The national picture: data from China’s National Energy Administration showed highways recorded 6.711 million EV charging sessions from October 1 to 7, with total electricity consumption of 163 million kWh. Average daily charging volume was 23.26 million kWh, up 51.42% year-on-year — the clearest single indicator that China’s EV fleet is now a grid-scale load event every holiday.