Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker BYD has unveiled a new charging system that it said could make it possible for EVs to charge as quickly as it takes to refill with petrol and announced for the first time that it would build a charging network across China.

The so-called “super e-platform” will be capable of peak charging speeds of 1,000 kilowatts (kW), enabling cars that use it to travel 400km (249 miles) on a five-minute charge, founder Wang Chuanfu said at an event livestreamed from the company’s Shenzhen headquarters on Monday.

Charging speeds of 1,000 kW would be twice as fast as Tesla’s superchargers, whose latest version offers up to 500 kW charging speeds. Fast-charging technology has been seen as key to increasing EV adoption.

The news will be unwelcome for already struggling Tesla, whose stock has plunged – down 15% on 10 March alone – in the wake of its owner Elon Musk’s championing of hard-right causes in Europe and slashing of federal workforce as part of his work with the Trump administration.

Since December, when Tesla’s market value hit a record high of $1.5tn, it has fallen by almost half. Besides missing sales targets, Tesla faces heightened investor pressure to produce autonomous vehicles, which Musk has promised but failed to deliver for about a decade. It is also facing increased competition with more affordable EV models, like those produced by BYD and other Chinese companies.

On Wall Street on Monday, Tesla stock fell 4.8%, its eighth consecutive weekly decline, according to Barrons.

“In order to completely solve our users’ charging anxiety, we have been pursuing a goal to make the charging time of electric vehicles as short as the refuelling time of petrol vehicles,” Wang said.

“This is the first time in the industry that the unit of megawatt (charge) has been achieved on charging power,” he said.

The new charging architecture will be initially available in two new EVs – Han L sedan and Tang L SUV priced from 270,000 yuan ($37,330) – and BYD said it would build more than 4,000 ultra-fast charging piles, or units, across China to match the new platform.

The company didn’t specify the time frame or how much it would invest in building such facilities. To date, BYD owners have largely relied on other automakers’ charging facilities or public charging poles run by third-party operators to charge their vehicles.

Tesla has offered its superchargers in China since 2014 and BYD’s smaller Chinese peers such as Nio, Li Auto, Xpeng and Zeekr have also been investing extensively and building charging facilities for years.

BYD mostly relies on plug-in hybrids for its sales, which hit 4.2m units last year. It has targeted selling 5-6m units this year.

With Reuters