Credit: BYD

China’s BYD will aim to take on Porsche and BMW in the European luxury car market with a premium electric vehicle that can be charged in just five minutes.

BYD, which overtook Tesla as the world’s largest EV maker last year, first demonstrated its “flash charging” technology, which enables an EV to be charged almost as quickly as filling a car with petrol, a year ago.

The Z9GT model, part of the premium Denza brand, can be 70 percent charged in five minutes and be almost full in 12 minutes, even in temperatures as low as -30° C.

The vehicle has a range of up to 800 km and will be launched in Europe next month and in the UK in the summer. Pricing is yet to be revealed.

BYD’s international chief Stella Li said the Z9GT marked an important milestone as it began the global rollout of flash charging.

The Chinese carmaker has aggressively expanded in the UK and Europe with affordable EVs and plug-in hybrids as sales in the home market have come under pressure from a government crackdown on pricing competition.

BYD sales in China plunged 41 percent in February compared with the same month in 2025, marking its biggest fall in five years. Bernstein analyst Eunice Lee predicted that its March deliveries would remain under pressure, with a recovery expected in the second quarter as BYD launches more models with flash charging.

Targeting the likes of Porsche, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz marks the expansion of BYD’s offerings from the mass market to the high end. The Chinese group started the Denza joint venture with Mercedes-Benz in 2010 and took full control in 2024.

BYD’s sales in the UK and Europe more than tripled last year to nearly 190,000 vehicles, according to trade body Acea. As of January, it had a 1.7 percent market share in the EU, with a 2.4 percent slice of the UK market last month.

BYD said it would start installing hundreds of its “flash stations” in Europe this year. It already has more than 4,200 sites in China and aims to have 20,000 operating worldwide by the end of the year.

The move echoes Tesla’s fast Supercharger stations that helped promote the brand while maintaining customer loyalty. They can give Tesla vehicles up to 200 miles (321km) of range in 15 minutes.

EV sales surged last year to account for 17.4 percent of EU sales, up from 13.6 percent in 2024. Battery-powered models on the continent overtook petrol for the first time in December, and sales have continued to increase this year.

However, penetration levels have differed significantly across the continent, with many parts of Eastern Europe still lacking in charging infrastructure, leading to range anxiety for some drivers.

Some industry figures have argued that having widespread public and home-charging infrastructure will be more important to increasing EV adoption than the ultrafast charging offered by the likes of BYD and CATL.

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