How long does it take to charge an electric car?
And what are the variables that will have an impact on recharging times?Watching paint dry, waiting for the kettle to boil, recharging the battery of your electric car… All of these activities test our patience in the time-poor 21st Century.
Of course, no one really has to watch paint dry or the kettle boil. Go watch Netflix instead…
But recharging an electric vehicle while out on the road does takes significantly more time than refuelling at a petrol station.
So how long does it take for an EV to recharge? Long enough to prepare dinner? Long enough to write three more chapters of one’s magnum opus? Long enough for Axel Rose to produce the next Guns N Roses album?
The answer will vary in accordance with these factors:
- The power output of the charging device used to replenish the battery
- The speed of the car’s on-board charger to draw power from an alternating current (AC) power source, when using that option
- The storage capacity of the battery
- How depleted the battery is
Charging alternatives
The sources available to recharge your electric car begin with the standard domestic power point in your home. This a single-phase circuit rated at 10 Amps. It produces 2.4kW (2400 Watts from 240 Volts multiplied by 10 Amps).
Installed at extra cost, a 15-Amp outlet is also known as a three-pin type of socket on a single-phase circuit. This 15A outlet delivers roughly 3.6kW to shave as much as a third off the recharging time.
Car companies and energy suppliers will sell you a dedicated wall-mounted single-phase AC charger that can be installed in your garage or office car park. These range in power from about 3kW up to 7kW and can halve the time it takes to recharge compared to a household plug.
If you need to replenish the battery away from home – or the office – destination chargers are three-phase AC units deployed in public locations such as shopping centre car parks, hotels and other public areas and are rated at 22kW.
An ever-expanding network of these charging stations are being fitted with direct current (DC) chargers that are more powerful. These start from around 50kW for a unit such as a basic Tritium Veefil-RT (commonly known as a fast charger) or Tritium’s Veefil-PK 350kW charger that is referred to as an ultra-rapid charger.
Tesla has built its own network of Superchargers that can only be used for its range of vehicles with the V2 delivering 120kW and the V3 delivering 250kW.
DC units charge faster than the AC units not only because the power they produce is higher, but also because their output bypasses the bottleneck of the car’s on-board charger.
In simple terms, AC (or alternating current) is like drip-feeding the battery small doses of power through a filter while DC (or direct current) is similar to pouring larger amounts through a pipeline.
How long does each EV take to charge?
Just like a refilling a petrol tank, the time it takes to replenish a battery depends on how much energy is in there already and how much you want to put back in.
Batteries operate at their most efficient when driven in a state of charge between 20 and 80 per cent, and in moderate temperatures like most of Australia’s major metropolitan areas.
As a result, the theoretical driving range will diminish greatly in cold climates and extreme heat, and consequently the time it takes to recharge will increase.
The biggest factor though is the power provided by the type of charging outlet used.
Basically, think of the vehicle’s battery capacity – which is measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh) – as if it was the physical volume of a petrol tank, while the power of the charging outlet is the size of the pump delivering the fuel.
The bigger the battery, the longer it will take to replenish. And the less powerful the charger, the slower the flow of electricity.
Recharging an electric vehicle from a basic 2.4kW home power point – depending on the storage capacity of the battery – can take more than a day to fully replenish.
That time can be slashed with a higher-output 15Amp power outlet and reduced to between seven and 12 hours – an overnight period – with a commercial 7kW wallbox.
When using a 22kW fast charger, a battery can be recharged to full in between four and seven hours, while a faster 50kW fast charger drastically reduces that time to 80 per cent in around an hour.
They generally prevent charging past this point as the heat generated by squeezing the last bit of energy into the battery can have a detrimental effect on its performance and longevity.
Beyond that, higher-powered DC ultra-rapid chargers can take as little as 15-30 minutes to top up a battery to 80 per cent capacity.
2024 BMW iX3 M Sport
Wall Socket Charge Time - 44 h
Fast Charge Time - 32min
2024 Kia EV9 Air
Wall Socket Charge Time - 32h and 15min
Fast Charge Time - 20 min
2024 Hyundai IONIQ 5 DYNAMIQ
Wall Socket Charge Time - 34h and 20min
Fast Charge Time - 18 min
2023 MG ZS EV Long Range
Wall Socket Charge Time - 35h
Fast Charge Time - 1h and 3min
2024 BYD ATTO 3 Standard
Wall Socket Charge Time - 28h
Fast Charge Time - 45 min
2024 Mercedes-Benz EQA350
Wall Socket Charge Time - 25h
Fast Charge Time - 30min
Related: Best electric cars of 2024
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