Having new, big numbers to crow about your particular car is always fun, and boy have our test-happy pals at Edmunds provided us with those. Thanks to their incredibly comprehensive charging test of 43 EVs, Porsche Taycan owners can now taunt Tesla Model S Plaid owners because their cars can do 690 mph, while those slow-ass Teslas are stuck at 523 mph. And everyone can jeer at the ’22 Chevy Bolt EUV, lumbering along at a glacial 172 mph. Of course, while all of these numbers are technically speeds, they all happen while the cars are stationary, because these are charging speeds. And, really, these are probably much more important numbers than actual driving speeds, when you think about it.
Charging speed is, of course, a big deal, as it will always be compared to the current default standard of the five-minute gas fill-up, where you can blast in a dozen or so gallons into your tank, giving you a range of likely over 300 miles or so. EVs have long been saddled with long charge times, but advances in fast charging hardware are changing things dramatically – provided you have access to a charging station equipped to deliver electrons that fast.
Really, none of this is simple: charging speed depends on a large number of factors, including the type of charger (these tests were done only with Level 3 DC fast charging chargers), the peak charging power of the car (that’s the highest rate the EV can take charge from the charging station), the battery management systems of the car, thermal and otherwise (because those affect how long the battery is able to take charge at the peak power), and there’s probably factors affected by weather and your zodiac sign, just because. The point is, it’s a far cry from pumping gas into a tank.
Also, these tests were done to get the battery from 10% to 80% of charge, because after 80%, charging slows down significantly, and it’s generally accepted that for good battery life, stopping at 80% most of the time is beneficial.
This Edmunds test is great because it’s really difficult to rely on just manufacturer information to say how quickly the car can charge – this is the same test, under the same circumstances, for all the cars. Here’s how Edmunds describes how they got their numbers:
We teamed up with EV-testing specialists at P3 to get the most detailed charging data. P3 utilizes a device that monitors and records electricity use while an EV is connected to a fast-charging station as well as power request communication between the EV and the station. We then combine P3’s data with Edmunds data on how much electricity a car uses per mile of driving to tell you actual miles per charging hour.
The electricity the car uses per mile is a good metric to note as well, as it’s the closest analog to miles per gallon, which is still how a lot of us think.
The test also has a chart that shows how long it takes each car to add 100 miles of range, which is a good quick-stop-on-a-road-trip metric. In that test, the Kia EV6 Wind RWD came in first taking 7:48 to get 100 miles of charge, with other notables like the Tesla Model 3 Long Range taking 11:25 to add 100 miles, and a VW ID.4 taking a bit over 16 minutes, a Ford Lightning taking 18, and oh, you can look at the whole huge chart here.
Edmunds was nice enough to let us reproduce their charge-miles-per-hour chart right here, though, so check this out:
This is all interesting because it’s an entirely new metric to consider when buying a car. In the combustion-car world, this just wasn’t a thing to even consider: it takes about as much time to put ten gallons of gas into a Geo Metro as it does to put ten gallons into a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost or a Lamborghini Aventador or a Zaporozhets 965 or whatever. Car buying just got a little more complicated! Yay?
Thankfully, there are organizations like Edmunds that have the resources and time to pull off these large-scale tests. Independent testing is really important here, because do you really want to trust the manufacturers for all of this data? I wouldn’t. Real world, electric apples-to-electric-apple testing is all you can count on.
I’ve been of the opinion for a while that charging time beats range if you want to foster adoption – I don’t mind a shorter range if I can be in and out in 5 minutes.
Well you can just unplug a long range EV whenever you like, no reason you have to charge it up all the way
This is more proof that the electric car marketplace will be as competitive and commodified as the ICE marketplace.
Nobody is going to have a killer app.
The Tesla shorts have always been right about the final result, the only question has been the time horizon.
And it’s pretty funny that people talk about the Tesla charging stations. Ok, let’s look at a comp. Travel Centers of America. Market cap $1.29 Billion. That’s going to be a pretty big fall for Tesla.
The cult leader saying the world is going to end in 2017 has always been right about the final result. The only question has been the time horizon.
Tesla is a mainstream car manufacturer now. Say what you will about the erratic CEO and the boondoggle that is the Cybertruck, this isn’t going to be a company with a massive fall. The charging network is well established, the Model 3/Y sell extremely well internationally, it has the fundamentals for continued success provided Musk doesn’t fuck the whole thing up. And even then, Henry Ford losing his marbles didn’t tank Ford.
“Tesla is a mainstream car manufacturer now.”
That’s its problem. It’s interesting you compare it to Ford because Tesla being valued the same as Ford would mean a $690 billion drop in Tesla’s value (a 94% drop).
Although, like I mentioned, you can add about $1 billion compared to Ford’s market cap for the charging network.
The Tesla Model Y may be the best selling car in Europe this year, but Dacia will be second place. The value of its parent, Renault (which also has two other cars in the top 10), $10 billion.
The only reason Tesla deserves any valuation premium over Ford, GM, VW, etc., is that it is not unionized. And with its stock stagnant/decreasing its workers are going to lose interest in the stock options and the UAW is gunning for it.
I think Bjorn Nyland has the real life best charging comparisons eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVYmdByInec comparing different types batteries that European Model Y has. There are so many variables but his tests seem to narrow things down quite a bit.
So if a “5 minute fill up” of my old ICE gains me 300 miles of range, then I’m gaining 3600 miles per hour filling up?
Okay – but 99.5% of the time I need to do that once every 2-3 weeks, and sometimes at the most inconvenient times. Or if I fill up when I’m down only 3/4 tank, it’s still @ 5 minutes – so we’re down to 2700 miles/hour – plus all the inconvenience. Then there’s the “check oil” light and the “take the car in for its next 10K service” notifications…
If I were able to plug in at home and leave 99.5% of my days for every normal trip – whether it’s 2.5 miles or 250 miles round trip – at 100%, I’d spend Zero of my own time standing around waiting to power up. And zero otherwise unnecessary detours or time off the road before, after or during appointments/errands. So that’s like 99.5% of Infinity miles for the life of the car, which surely beats 3600 miles/hour?
Plus no more being asked to add a quart of oil, much less time buying the oil, or spending two-three hours taking the car in/picking the car up for service every few months and dealing with loaners/Ubers/service writers. And no more being panhandled or waiting for some idiot to get their act together at certain gas stations…
Ha,great thinking!
That’s great and all, but can Hyundai/Kia fix their dealerships. Went to a Hyundai dealership with my niece and the sales experience was so bad we had to walk out.
I tried test driving a Kia Stinger and they wanted to do a credit check on me. Meanwhile BMW happily let me test drive a M5 without a care in the world
That’s why, for mainstream brands, you only want to deal with the internet sales/fleet manager – and you bring your own money/financing.
You bypass most of the tawdry mess and scammy salespeople that way.
I always question charts like this. It looks great on paper but in the real world there are a lot of variables. I have seen my Model 3 charge faster than they report. Was this just one stop or on a road trip because then thermal management is much more important and that is a key area that Hyundai/Kia needs improvement.
The testing procedure is outlined in the article, but this is an “all factors being equal” scenario – as many variables as possible being removed.
Hey from what I have read in winter you get at best half of the range in an EV. BUT how does cold weather affect charging of an EV? HOW about charging station storage? Charging time?
Range in an EV in the winter depends on the car. If you have a car with a Heat Pump, the range loss is pretty minor compared to a car with a regular resistive heater. Unless you have a bZ4X/Solterra where the HVAC seems to just consume range in the cold for some reason.
Most EV’s will cycle the battery heater when in cold temps even if you’re away from it, to keep the battery in a good temperature range; And/Or you can have the car precondition the interior and everything automatically or from your phone while it’s on the charger, like in your garage. Charging speeds in the cold aren’t particularly affected (on most cars), they’ll precondition to the optimal temp the battery if they know you’re going to a charger (which you navigate to in the infotainment).
There are cars where this stuff isn’t the case, like the Nissan Leaf, which has an air cooled battery. If you park it out in the freezing cold, and try to immediately plug it in before driving it for a while to warm up the pack, it will probably charge at less than 1kW until it gets some warmth into the battery.
Thanks learned from you. I had a diesel truck I would plug in on a cold night and could start it at 3am and below zero and have immediate heat. Would having a block heater plugged in help range on a cold night better than just charging at night?
I mean… having it plugged into a charger basically is like having a block heater. A lot of cars (hesitate to say most because I’m not sure how each OEM does their software) will always try and keep the battery coolant temp at optimal temps when plugged into a charger, which you’d be doing at home anyway. Pretty much every EV other than the Nissan Leaf has their battery tied into a coolant loop with a radiator, just like an engine. They have a built in heater to heat up the coolant, and the radiator for obviously cooling it down if it gets really hot (track driving, DC Fast Charging)
As for range… again it depends on the car and how they have the HVAC set up. Some cars have a PTC heater (like a space heater you’d have in your house) and they consume a lot of energy to give you heat. Some cars have a Heat Pump like you might have at your house, and they’re very efficient at generating heat, it’s one of those things I’d consider a “must have” on an EV if you live in a colder climate. To minimize range loss in the winter, especially if you don’t have a car with a heat pump, you should warm up the interior while it’s still on the charger (like you can tell the car to “turn on” and warm up at a set time, like if you leave for work at the same time every day, or just use the app on your phone)
Thanks I just wondered if a separate block heater would allow the charger to concentrate on just charging since level 1 takes so long. I appreciate the knowledge.
Yeah Level 1 just doesn’t put out enough power to be able to charge the car at any meaningful rate while also doing the HVAC and cooling system. Level 2 is what you really want for the best ownership experience, especially if you’re in the cold.
Level 1 under ideal conditions only adds about 3.5mi/hr of charging on most EV’s, and if that works for you, chances are any range loss you’d see in the cold anyway wouldn’t be enough to matter or even noticeable since you’re realistically doing less than 30mi/day
> Pretty much every EV other than the Nissan Leaf has their battery tied into a coolant loop with a radiator
There’s one Changli whose battery temperature is regulated with a snorkel and a spare heat sink from an 8086 processor duct taped near the terminals.
It depends on the car but it’s not half off. Tesla loses about 12%-15% and some others lose up to 25%. LFP batteries perform worse in cold weather as well. Charging will also be affected if not preconditioning properly. This is a modern EV and not a Leaf or Bolt. Out of Spec motoring has covered a car sitting outside in the snow and then going straight to charging and it can take a while when an EV has been cold soaked to start charging at a reasonable rate.
So they all suck compared to ICE, and that’s without taking in to consideration finding and waiting for a charger?
If you plug in at home, there’s no finding or waiting for a charger – unless you have trouble finding your own garage.
As far as finding chargers on the road – most, if not all, new EVs will tell you exactly where and how to get there.
Its not as hard as you think.
Been reading stories in some areas chargers are rare as hens teeth and once you get there no guarantee they are working.
If you’re reliant on charging at anything but a Tesla Supercharger, this is true sometimes. I never had a problem charging my Lightning, but I carefully planned my big trips and I monitored Plugshare for reports of non-working chargers. An EV owner shouldn’t have to do this though. This is a big reason why nearly every mfr has decided to move to NACS so they’ll be able to leverage the far more reliable and prevalent supercharger network.
I’ve done ~10 different 1,000+ mile trips in several different EVs, and the time I’ve waited for a charger COMBINED across all those trips is like 15 minutes.
Waiting happens, but it’s far from inevitable or typical. And “finding” a charger means plugging the location into your Nav and the car tells you what to do.
I think we ought to pass a law to slow down gasoline pumps to speeds commensurate with electric charging so we can all share in the misery. I’m kidding! I’m kidding!
Half the pumps in Ohio seem to do that in the winter. I’m not sure what their problem is here.
I pumped gas all through high school and college in Massachusetts and this was not uncommon. Turns out there’s a mechanical leak detector in the lines that loses pressure in the cold and sends a false leak signal to the pump causing it to pump slowly to avoid massive overspill from a leak. These detectors need to be reset for cold weather ops, which many station owners/operators do not know. I was told that a workaround solution was to turn the pump on, but not squeeze the dispenser handle, lay the nozzle on the ground and allow the pump to bring internal pressure up, which should allow the leak detector to work as designed after about 15-30 seconds. Of course, in extreme cold, if the pump sits idle long enough, the situation will reoccur. Best just to recalibrate the leak sensor, though that requires time and a technician.
Easily solved by inserting a lit match into the nozzle.
You know now that is what they will do. I will hunt you down jk
This is a lot of great data, but it’s still really just one metric of several that tell you how “fast” your car charges.
This data derives all of its rankings from 10-80% charging.
That’s a decent overall metric, but the rankings can change somewhat for different charging ranges, similar to comparing two cars based on 0-60, Quarter Mile, and Standing mile.
0-60 might be 5-50%
Quarter mile might be 10-80%
Standing Mile might be 0-100%
Like car acceleration, different cars have different strengths, and some are hit REALLY hard by going to high battery charge levels.
For instance, I really try to avoid charging above ~70% in my Lightning because it slows way down in the mid 70s, and has another big drop at 80%+. And with the bad efficiency, it’s just charging very slow by that point. It makes more sense, when there are other charging options, to just charge to ~70%, say 4 times, than charge to 90% 3 times.
Bolt also slows way down at higher SOC. You REALLY need to try to do most of your charging between 0-50% in the Bolt where it charges at it’s max rate (~50kW). Drag it all the way out to 80%+ and you’ve wrecked your average because you’re charging at a measly 18kW at that point, just ~60 miles/hr!
Teslas are really fast at lower battery levels (250kW, only beaten by Taycan/Etron GT on this chart), plus very good efficiency, makes the miles/hr really high early on, but they don’t hold those high rates as long as Taycan or Hyundai/Kia.
Audi E-tron, however, charges at it’s max rate of 150kW all the way from 0-80%. Super weird charge curve, but that means it’s great if you NEED 80%, but it gets crushed by some of the other vehicles if you only need to add 100 miles. Low range and low efficiency don’t help.
So, optimizing your charging stops for your car’s charging “powerband” can substantially improve its performance relative to others.
Look at a “0-60” time, something like a 5-50% time or time to add 100 miles, and Tesla is going to near the top.
If you’re doing 300 mile trips (not super long trips) and just want a 100-mile boost, the Lightning or Bolt still won’t be *great*, but they’ll look better than they do here because everything assume charging all the way to 80%.
Ultimately, there are a lot of variables, but I think a combination of metrics will be most broadly useful for comparing EVs:
5-50%
10-80%
Time to add 100 miles from 10%
etc.
Most of my charging on longer trips is only to 50-60% since Supercharger stations are often pretty prevalent, and I tend to go down to 15% or so, but in charging deserts I found myself going above 90% just to make it to the next station, or to make it back to the same station if I were making a loop.
Really? There isn’t a super charging system close enough to me that I can only drive there and home and back again
Yeah, stopping at 50-60% optimizes your charging in miles/minute in Teslas. It’s the fastest way to charge in a vacuum.
But yeah, sometimes you have to charge higher for some reason: gap between chargers, going somewhere remote, etc.
That’s really my point. Comparing 10-80% is valuable, like comparing Quarter Mile times, but to get a full picture, it makes sense to also look at 0-60mph, 5-60mph, 50-70mph, etc., which is like 5-60%, 0-100%, etc.
I’m far more interested in the charging losses. My Polestar 2 is abysmal with 17.7% of the energy wasted to heat, etc. The Teslas and Mach-Es are astoundingly efficient with only about 1% of the energy wasted. Since I rarely charge at a fast-charger, and when I do, I plan the time into my schedule, the charging speed isn’t all that important to me. Even the fastest cars barely come within a factor of 10 of the time it takes to pump gasoline into a tank.
Anyway, I appreciate Edmunds for publishing these results and I’m going to keep an eye on charging losses when my Polestar lease is up and I’m looking for a new EV.
DC charging has almost no losses unless you’re sitting in the car running the HVAC, or it is especially hot and the car is running the AC to cool the battery. There are charging losses associated with car’s onboard rectifier’s (charger’s) efficiency, however. Nobody’s onboard charger is 99% efficient though. Most are in the low 90s.
Based on the test results and the consistency within brands, I suspect they accounted for extraneous variables like that. I don’t think they’re measuring rectifier efficiency, specifically, although it must be related. They’re measuring overall transfer efficiency. From Edmunds:
How does Edmunds measure charging losses?Edmunds measures charging losses based on the amount of energy used to charge a vehicle from 10% to 80% and compares that figure to what would equal 70% (80% minus 10%) of the total net capacity (the usable battery capacity) of a vehicle. For example, if your battery has a total net capacity of 100 kWh, it should take only 71 kWh to charge it from 10% to 80% (there are 71 increments between 10 and 80). If we measure that it took 80 kWh to charge the battery from 10% to 80%, then charging losses would equal 11.3%.
> The Teslas and Mach-Es are astoundingly efficient with only about 1% of the energy wasted
That sounds… Impossible.
I think it’s feasible-ish for DC charting. Adding in a rectifier and voltage boost for L2 and it probably tops out at more like 95% best-case.
Shit you are late to this realization. Has been a standard metric for 10+ years now.
Btw, std range model Y’s out of Germany are using BYD blade batteries and will charge at 700+ mph.
You know what? 868 miles in an hour is enough. If I’m taking an 868 mile trip (which I do on occasion) I’m stopping for at least an hour in total to pee, eat, and just stretch my legs. I could easily top off my battery with a few 20 minute stops at that speed.
Of course, the problem is you can’t rely on charging that fast on publicly available infrastructure. The cars are way ahead of the charging network, which makes these numbers borderline meaningless.
The only person I know with an electric car (a Tesla), also has two small kids, and says that having to stop for ~40 mins to charge on longer journeys isn’t really a problem, because at that point the kids are getting cranky and need a break as well.
As far as he’s concerned the occasional compromises he has to make, are more than made up for the money he’s saving not paying for fuel. (That calculation will be different for everyone.)
There will always be a few catheter cowboys insisting that anything more than a 5 minute stop every 1000 miles is a crime against humanity foisted on us by latte-drinking heathens. But I gotta say, the latest generation of EVs really seem to be good enough for, like, 85% of use cases out there.
Yeah, the infrastructure needs work, and yeah, cars (EV or otherwise) are stupid expensive. But we’re getting there.
When DC charging, if I have a choice, I almost always seek out slower chargers — since faster charging increases battery degradation. I’ve been driving EVs for over five years and have yet to feel anxious about getting a super fast fill up. Most people who are hung up on it haven’t been living (for very long, at least) with an EV. Charging overnight at home or fast charging in places where you are happy to relax for 30+ minutes is a mental shift that doesn’t really take long to happen, though.
Exactly, I’ve been trying to explain this to people and they have a hard time grasping it. The other part is planning, when taking a road trip I plan to buy supplies/groceries a 1-3 hours into the trip, somewhere with a charger(usually Target). Or stop for a meal. So instead of leaving after breakfast or lunch, leave an hour or two before and charge while eating what I packed.
It’s only relevant if you use public DC fast charging. We charge at home where the speed of charge is limited by the level 1 (120v) or level 2 (220v) wiring in the home more than anything else (usually capped at 32amps at 220v on a 40 amp circuit). In that context, the Bolts are no slower than anyone else’s EV (and they’re the bargain of the year – starting around $20K NEW assuming you qualify for the $7500 tax credit) We liked our 23 Bolt EUV so much we purchased 23 Bolt EV as a stable mate!
It only takes us about 20 seconds to charge our Bolts… 10 seconds to plug in and the next day 10 more seconds to unplug it. – and at 9 cents / kwh and ~ 4-5 miles per kwh it’s only about 20% of the cost to drive the same miles in a typical ICE vehicle.
If you’re lucky enough to have a place to plug it in at home (or work) every day and pay low kwh rates, you’ll not want to bother with DC fast charging and the time/costs involved (from what I’ve seen the costs / kwh at some DC chargers can be much higher than the cost for gas to do the same miles). We take advantage of home charging + we have ICE options for road trips making the Bolts the choice for almost all of our driving. Great cars for the crazy low money – snag one while you can.
I owned a Bolt, and liked that car. Agree with all of your points – but if you need to drive more than 250 miles on a trip…it really is a drag.
For me, it really was more of a local commuter – but on the occasion I did have longer trips…adding 100 miles in 35 minutes was obviously not very good.
For $20k / as a second car…it’s probably fine.
But at the same time, if they just bump that up to 150kw…it becomes a much better overall package.
Where are you paying $.09/kWh that’s amazing!? I’ve never lived anywhere it was cheaper than $.18 and where I live now it’s $.26 but only off-peak.
I pay 10.8 cents/kWh here in Longmont, CO. That’s slightly higher than it was 6 months ago, but I’m happy with it.
Memphis – good rate but to extra rebates or credits for EVs. TN is pretty backwards/conservative.
NO extra credits or rebates in TN (Not “to”).
Not to be anti-EV or anything, but for comparison’s sake I did some rough math for a gas vehicle.
US pumps are limited to 10gpm, so let’s call it 5 for a slow pump
So a car that gets a middling 20mpg is adding 6,000mph on a mediocre pump
And if you steal the gas it is also free.
So when I plug in overnight for 8 hours I could theoretically get 6,400 miles of range.
868mph? just how long is the cord? LOL.
On a serious note the Koreans also have a decent range as well. However have a decent range AND having a fast charging speed from 10% to 80% in 18 minutes makes a massive difference to usability.
If only we had a comprehensive charging network so we can get those charging speeds everywhere.
“…it takes about as much time to put ten gallons of gas into a Geo Metro as… a Zaporozhets 965…”
A Zaporozhets 965 has a 7.9 gallon fuel tank, so putting in ten gallons may not take more time but it will produce distinctly different results.
Well, it may give the fender an interesting patina look if you let it evaporate
Given the location of the tank, the fender wouldn’t be the issue. The good news and the bad news is that the extra couple of gallons might very well remain mostly inside the vehicle:
https://cdn.classicmoto.rs/data/ed/7a/1961-zaz-zaporozhets-965-231.jpg
I’d be interested in a deeper dive on what goes into decisions about fast charging speed. The base architecture 400v vs 800v is one thing, but making is it about cost? Protecting the battery? Why did they decide to have the charging curve’s that they did? Etc.
Like, you could easily be cross shopping an Ioniq 6 vs a Mach-E, and the variance between the two is crazy (+10 min to add 100 miles!). How did Ford & Hyundai arrive at these decisions?
400V is cheaper to engineer. 800V costs more to develop and implement, but you do gain benefits like faster charging, lower current (meaning your charging cables can be thinner and more manageable since they’re delivering less amperage to charge the vehicle). When making a higher-priced or more premium product, 800V doesn’t have really any downsides because the vehicle is going to be more expensive anyway. It’s when you’re making a commodity product where a $2k vehicle price difference could sway someone’s purchasing decision. Kia/Hyundai developed a ground-up 800V architecture that’s going to stretch across all of their EV’s to help with absorbing the cost. Also Kia/Hyundai absolutely rip on their charging curve, a lot more than other vehicles, and they don’t run much of a buffer (IIRC)… so I do wonder about their battery longevity. Whereas Toyota is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum and is way too conservative with their battery management (bZ4X, Solterra)
There are some downsides to 800V. In Europe, there’s a lot of low voltage but high amperage charging hardware in the wild, meaning that you need some kind of on-board booster in order to jump the voltage up enough to charge the car. Lucid has one and it’s called the Wunderbox, but it can only ouput a max of 50kW so if you plug it into a lower voltage system, it takes forever to charge. Kia/Hyundai skimped on the on-board booster too so it only maxes out at about 45kW on a 400V charger. Porsche are the only people with a High Voltage car that I’m aware of that has an optional 150kW on-board booster, which may help on certain European chargers (although i’m betting they’re glad they’ve developed it now so they could very easily jump on the Tesla/NACS/Supercharger bandwagon and their cars would charge fine)
Tesla’s supercharger network also runs at 400V (although V4 will be capable of 1000v/1000A at some point). Up until Tesla started opening the network within the past year, there were no low-voltage high-amperage public DC Fast Chargers in the US, so none of this was an issue.
Seems like the “Time to 100 miles of range” metric would be more informative.
That’s in the table of results on the Edmund’s page.
Yes, but with a caveat.
It’s the average amount of time to add 100 miles ending at any SOC <=80%.
If you show up at a charging station with low battery (relatively typical), some cars will be much faster than claimed because of where their charging “powerband” is.
The testing lists the Model 3 LR as having an “average” speed of 136kW to 80%.
But if you just need 100 miles, going from 5% to ~40%, the average speed will be over 200kW, over 50% faster than the average from 10-80% that they’re using.
One thing to note, aside from charger availability as others have, is that this is clearly only looking at peak charging speed, not average or overall. Our ’22 Polestar 2 dual-motor comes in at #31, at 355 miles an hour, but that’s simply not achievable in the real world. Max range is ~250 miles, and going from 5% to 90% takes around an hour, depending on temperature. Getting that final 10% could easily add another 40 minutes or so. 355 miles of range per hour is a fantasy lol.
In other words, there’s some massive practical differences that mean this chart isn’t particularly useful, unless I’m missing something (someone let me know if I am). You’d need to factor in battery size as well as charging curves alongside efficiency metrics to get a better picture.
Sounds like the “100 miles of charge” chart is more useful.
Yep, on a re-read I’m realizing I missed a few things. This is what happens when you spill oatmeal halfway through an article. Still not sure how they ended up with that figure, even looking at charging from just 10%-80%. Maybe I need to check my math.
What are the chances of finding any chargers in the wild that can provide these speeds and are working?
in 18 months when they have access to the Tesla charging network? Pretty good.
Right now? effing awful in most of the country, although I’ve been lucky with mine. I have an EV6 which I believe charges at the same rate if you read the info from the manufacturer, not what the table above shows.
Well it’s different as the Ioniq 6 gets 361 mile range and the EV6 gets a 310 mile range, both cars have the same battery / motor / etc.
Tesla is only just rolling out their v4 chargers that can do those speeds. Don’t know how fast the roll-out will be
Tesla has ~15,000 V3 chargers in North America that can do 250kW, already (faster than Hyundai / Kia can accept in kW).
Confusingly, Hyundai/Kia can’t actually get 250kW out of those, but Teslas can (and have) for several years, now.
iirc that’s due to Voltage, because the V3 supercharger is a ~400V based network, and the Hyundai/Kia EVs are 800V architecture, the internal DC-DC and Inverter system have to ramp the voltage up to 800V and aren’t able to do that at a extremely high amperage unlike the Teslas which can just take in a ton of amperage at 400V to get to 250kW peak speeds.
While it IS a big deal that V3/4 superchargers will open up to Non-Tesla EVs, there will be limitations for them unlike what you would encounter in a Tesla at a supercharger. There are lots of things to be said about Tesla build quality, reliability, and Musk Marketing, but their ecosystem integration with fast, extremely reliable and high powered chargers are not one of them. Add in the seamless handoff without requiring 6 different apps with accounts and credit card details, just plug in an charge, almost always at the max of the station. You DO have to store credit card details in the cars system though, so obviously still far from ideal.
Yep the max I’ve seen is around 240kW on a 350kW charger.
Oddly there is a lot of reports that the EV6 will get 175kW from a 150kW EA charger.
The 800V architecture cars (Kia/Hyundai/Porsche) will suffer on the 500V Tesla Superchargers. They can charge at lower voltages, but the speed is greatly reduced. There are very few V4 1000V Superchargers in the wild.
We have road tripped Tesla’s a few times. We are never ready to leave before the car is done charging. The car is always ready before us.
IMHO, charging speeds are going to be like 1/2 ton truck tow ratings. Its nice to have a 10,000 pound tow rating, but will you ever need it? Sure, your car can go from 10% to 80% in 10 minutes, but will the family be done hitting the restroom, stretching their legs and getting snacks/drink for the next 2-3 hour leg of the trip by then?
I’ve had the exact same experience road tripping my EV6, We’ve always managed to get 350kW chargers on the EA network, and they worked too lol.
As you say, the car was always done charging (back to 80% or slightly beyond) for bathroom breaks and 100%, before we’d finished with the bathroom breaks and lunch.
We’ve never waited for the car to charge.
Please note. I won’t go past 80% if there’s a line of cars waiting, I’ve got plenty of range to get to the next charger at 80% charge.
The chances are quite good that you’ll find a working charger that can max out all the non-Tesla cars, but there’s certainly a substantially higher probability of one or more of the chargers at a site being broken or derated than at a Tesla site. Or, that you’ll have issues getting it started. Also, because many non-Tesla sites have a mixture of charger max rates (150kW and 350kW), you might have to settle for 150kW unless you want to wait for the 350kW to open up, in which case, total time may be better for the 150kW anyway.
The non-Tesla network isn’t THAT much worse on total uptime, but downtime and issues are much more frequent.
For instance: if Tesla has 99% uptime and Electrify America is 95% uptime (example numbers), both are VERY likely to get your car charged, but you’re still 5 times more likely to have an issue at an EA station.
I want to add another metric to see who is really on top. Multiply the range by the percentage of chargers in operation that can charge at the specified speed. I suspect you might see a drop in the top players who rely on 350kw chargers. Although now I’m wondering if the P3 Data includes vehicles using both high speed and mid-high speed charging averaged out in the data