Two children were filmed swinging from a BYD Megawatt Flash Charger cable at a charging station in Nanning, Guangxi, on October 2, during China’s National Day holiday period. The footage spread on Chinese social media. BYD customer service said on October 4 that playing with charging equipment this way was dangerous, and the company sent maintenance staff to inspect the site and said it would strengthen station checks and monitoring. The report did not say anyone was injured.
The incident raises concerns beyond the risk of contact with high-voltage equipment. The overhead cable system is designed to support a heavy, liquid-cooled charging lead and keep it off the ground. When used as a swing, the cable and its roughly 3–5 kg connector can impose repeated, changing forces on the suspension, reel and cable. The lead contains copper conductors, communication wiring and coolant passages; repeated bending or sideways loads could damage internal components, including the protective earth conductor, without obvious external signs.
BYD introduced the Megawatt Flash Charger with its Super e-Platform in March 2025. For compatible battery-electric vehicles, it supports charging at up to 1,000 volts and 1,000 kW, or 1 MW, with the hardware described as theoretically capable of up to 1,500 kW at 1,500 amps. The report says China’s GB/T 18487.1 and GB/T 20234 standards include mechanical tests such as a vehicle compression load of up to 5,000 N and tensile loads of 200–400 N, but these are static tests and do not cover repeated pendulum-like forces.
BYD had more than 10,000 Megawatt Flash Charging stations operating in China and aimed to reach 20,000 by the end of 2026. For overseas markets, it set a target of 6,000 Flash Charging stations by the end of 2027, including 3,000 in the European Union and 300 in the United Kingdom.