Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / Zeekr 001 FR Cuts EV Charging to 11 Minutes
Transcript
- 0:01Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Elon Musk
- 0:04Podcast. This is a show where we discuss
- 0:07the critical crossroads. That shape SpaceX.
- 0:09Tesla X, The Boring Company and Neurolink.
- 0:13I'm your host, Will Walden Zeeker.
- 0:17Has just delivered the first production EV that can add 310
- 0:21miles of range in about 11 1/2 minutes.
- 0:24Does the 2025 Zeeker 001 Fr and it is not a prototype.
- 0:29This is a real thing and it's on sale in China right now.
- 0:33It's powered by CATL with cattle, new Quillin battery,
- 0:37QILIN if you're not familiar, and an 800 Volt architecture
- 0:41that raises the bar for how fast any EV can charge if it's
- 0:45equipped with this stuff. So how long before Western
- 0:49Automaker's Tesla in particular, are they going to be able to
- 0:53match this kind of speed anytime soon?
- 0:57We don't know. We don't know the I'm sure
- 1:00Tesla's working on something similar, but we have no
- 1:02information about it. So let's talk about this.
- 1:05Zeker, OK, Geely is a umbrella company.
- 1:13Zeker is their premium EV brand, and they claim that the 001 Fr
- 1:18reaches the peak charging rate of 546 kilowatts.
- 1:22That is a major blow to their competitors.
- 1:26Tesla Supercharger V3 is 250 kilowatts Porcin 1 of the
- 1:35fastest charging EVs on the market is 270 kilowatts.
- 1:38Zeger's new setup more than double S that the car charges
- 1:42from 10 to 80% in just 11 1/2 minutes and in that time it can
- 1:47gain about 250 ish miles of range.
- 1:51And even with real world variations, the scale of that
- 1:53improvement is huge. This battery, that's what made
- 1:59this possible. It's cell to pack design removes
- 2:02the traditional module structure, increasing both
- 2:04energy density and cooling efficiency.
- 2:07Heat management has always been the barrier to faster charging,
- 2:11and this new pack attacks that directly.
- 2:14Ziker didn't just make an announcement, they have put out
- 2:20the vehicle. It built this battery into a car
- 2:26that people can actually buy and this is a consumer reality now.
- 2:31The 00 Fr uses a quad motor setup that delivers 12165
- 2:35horsepower and it's all-wheel drive.
- 2:38It escalates from zero to 62 mph.
- 2:41At. 2.07 seconds with launch control active and Zeker
- 2:46developed its own motors for the car, giving it precise torque
- 2:50vectoring in a drift mode that usually belongs in track only
- 2:54prototype, so this thing is a killer.
- 2:57Unlike most high performance EVs, this one doesn't trade
- 3:00charging speed for power, though it combines both and it's
- 3:06already out there. Like I said before, it's in
- 3:08China and the pricing puts the car in direct competition with
- 3:11Porsche and Tesla's top models. At around $102,000 USD, it sits
- 3:20beside the Model S Plaid and the Take Hand Turbo.
- 3:27Those cars deliver similar acceleration but can't charge
- 3:31anywhere near as quickly. Zika's claim of 546 kilowatts
- 3:36dwarfs anything Porsche and Tesla are doing right now.
- 3:40For buyers who want performance in fast turn around times on
- 3:43long trips, the difference matters as much as the
- 3:47horsepower numbers because anything can go zero to 60 in
- 3:50two seconds now. Not a big deal for EVs.
- 3:54We getting that 10 minute, 12 minute turn around on charging
- 3:58time and you don't have to wait 30 minutes anymore.
- 4:01You just have to wait the 10 minutes.
- 4:03It's about the same time as a regular gas pump.
- 4:07I mean, a regular gas pump it's around 5:00 to 7:00 minutes.
- 4:11And if you wait a couple extra minutes, you can charge your EV
- 4:14almost all the way. You get up about 250 more miles
- 4:18out of it. So this is a huge, huge deal.
- 4:22Zeiger's new V3 charging network supports the speed too.
- 4:26This is a big deal too, the charging network.
- 4:29Without this network, this wouldn't be possible.
- 4:31Each charger delivers up to 800 amps at 800 volts.
- 4:35There's over 1000 stations to be expected across China by the end
- 4:41of this year. That is insane. 1000 stations
- 4:49across China by the end of 2025. Zeker says the system will
- 4:54support other 800 Volt vehicles later on.
- 4:57So they're ruling it out to their vehicles first, then
- 5:00they're going to make it compatible with others,
- 5:02basically using the Tesla Playbook, the test the logic of
- 5:06controlling the both the car and the charging ecosystem, but with
- 5:10a faster hardware curve. Zeker only began building cars
- 5:13in 2021, but it's already creating its own national
- 5:18network. This is absurd in the best kind
- 5:21of way. We need this technology.
- 5:23Everybody does. So they've tested this thing
- 5:28from top to bottom. They've done endurance
- 5:31conditions before any of the deliveries began.
- 5:35They drove it more than 16,000 kilometers on the Nirburn Ring
- 5:42and ran it for 24 continuous hours to measure thermal
- 5:45stability. It worked fine.
- 5:46Most Chinese EVs are designed for city driving.
- 5:49Mazeker wanted proof that it's high voltage platform could
- 5:52handle sustained loads and times.
- 5:56And those tests show the system isn't just about fast charging,
- 5:59but it's also durable and it can last for a long time on long
- 6:03road trips. So if you're a Rd. tripper, this
- 6:07is this might be the one for you if you're in China.
- 6:10But soon Europe will get this too.
- 6:15They already sell the standard 001 in markets like the
- 6:17Netherlands in Sweden. And the Fr could follow once
- 6:20regulatory approvals line up. They would place it directly
- 6:23against Porsche's strongest EV market.
- 6:26And if Zika brings his chargers with them, it could shift how
- 6:29European buyers think about charging convenience and long
- 6:32distance travel for their EVs. So you're not going to be
- 6:36waiting 30 minutes for a charge anymore.
- 6:38You'll wait around 11:50 minutes.
- 6:41That's a huge, huge change. There's some innovation with
- 6:48Zeiger. Other companies are going to
- 6:50follow them and they're going to beat them.
- 6:52So I'm assuming in the next five years we will have anywhere
- 6:58between 5:00 and 7:00 minute charges.
- 7:04It's how innovation happens. Western automakers have been
- 7:06promising sub 15 minute charging by the end of the decade, often
- 7:10hinging on solid-state batteries still under development.
- 7:14But Zeker skipped the path by refining existing lithium ion
- 7:18chemistry and cooling design, and the result is a car that
- 7:22performs right now, you can get it right now.
- 7:25I just keep saying that because it's wild that this thing
- 7:27exists. And the zero to 1 Fr shows the
- 7:30benefit of keeping battery production a car designed under
- 7:331 corporate roof. It's like Apple, right?
- 7:35You have the software, you have the hardware, it all works
- 7:38together. And that is the most important
- 7:40part because if you hand this off to a third party, there's
- 7:45going to be hiccups along the way.
- 7:47There's going to be Rd. curves, there's going to be speed bumps,
- 7:52there's going to be gullies, there's going to be ditches,
- 7:54going to be big hills to climb. Sometimes things won't be
- 7:57available and that's somebody else's fault.
- 8:00But luckily they kept it in house and it allows Zeker to
- 8:05integrate new technology faster. And competitors are going to be
- 8:09slower because they rely on outside suppliers.
- 8:13And that alignment compresses timelines from years to months.
- 8:17They can do everything they want whenever they want to do it.
- 8:20So Tesla, let's compare this to Tesla a little bit.
- 8:24They've, Tesla built their edge through vertical integration,
- 8:28just like Zeker's doing. I guess Zeker's doing it like
- 8:31Tesla did. But Zeker has now applied the
- 8:33same strategy to charging performance.
- 8:35So instead of working on the cars as much, I mean, they have
- 8:39a great car, but they've also worked more so on the charging,
- 8:45which is the biggest thing that people are worried about.
- 8:49Like anybody can make an EV. No, you know it.
- 8:52You can make a a decent. EV for.
- 8:55You know, $45,000 but if your vehicle, and I'm going to see
- 9:00this in a weird way, but if it only gets 350 miles, you have to
- 9:06charge it again. But what if you're in the middle
- 9:10of nowhere and there's no chargers?
- 9:12You're kind of, you know, it's not a good idea or what if
- 9:18you're someplace that you don't want to be, there's a charger
- 9:20and you don't want to go to that charger for some specific
- 9:24reason. Maybe there's shady people
- 9:25there. You don't want to go to that
- 9:27charger. They have to go to the next
- 9:28charger. What if there's no chargers for
- 9:29the next 100 miles? And it does happen in rural
- 9:33areas. I mean, where I used to live, I
- 9:36used to live in Burlington, Vt, there were three Tesla chargers
- 9:40in the city and they were scattered about.
- 9:42Mind you, it's a 50 to 75,000 person city.
- 9:47But then when you go north towards Canada, 0 Tesla chargers
- 9:51anywhere from Burlington to Quebec.
- 9:55So good luck if you forgot to charge when you left Burlington
- 10:00because and you have like a quarter of a charge and that's
- 10:02on you. You know, of course, but like if
- 10:04you had an ICE car, you would just pull over at the next stop
- 10:07and you'd get some gas, right? Or on your way out of town, you
- 10:10get some gas and you'd be fine. But the charging network is
- 10:14super important. Zeker understood that, so they
- 10:18made that network alongside the vehicle, like 1 to 1 building
- 10:23the car, the building the infrastructure, the building it.
- 10:26So it goes super fast to charging and also super fast on
- 10:30the road. They thought that this was going
- 10:36to be a future milestone. The Western world has been
- 10:38working on this for a long time, but Zeker did it ultra fast
- 10:43charging. It's not development anymore.
- 10:45It's a real thing. It's parked on the streets, it's
- 10:47plugged in and it's charging right now.
- 10:51So if you're in China, take a look at Zeker and if you're in
- 10:55Europe, also take take a look, see when it's going to be
- 10:58available. Hey, thank you so much for
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