How long do electric cars take to charge?

With the popularity of EV’s growing massively over recent years, and especially 2019, charging habits have started to adjust and are now more akin to how you charge your phone. The majority of electric car charging will be done as a ‘top-up’, when you’re at home, work, the gym or around town. These quick charges could give your car an additional 90 miles of range within an hour. It’s possible that for most people, you might even find that on a regular week you never charge your car from 0% to 100% as whenever there’s a plug available you utilise it. On long journeys though, you might be required to charge from empty to full before you can get going again.

Each manufacturer is clambering to release faster, cheaper and longer-range cars, but with each having so many different batteries and charging speeds, how long does it actually take to charge an electric car? 

Depending on the charging point, an electric car can go from empty to full in anywhere from an hour to 31 hours. The charging points you install at home will typically be either 3.7kW or 7kW (as 22kW+ charging requires expensive additional work).

It’s worth noting too that all electric cars can charge with a higher power charger, as long as it’s a compatible plug. The vehicle will simply limit the power to the maximum amount it can handle.

For most vehicles, 50kW rapid chargers are the quickest way to get to 100%, providing a full battery (around 150-300 miles of range) after about an hour of charging. Some of the new EV’s being released from the likes of Audi and Mercedes-Benz are compatible with 150kW charging, in addition to Tesla’s Model S, X and 3. 150kW chargers can provide up to 300 miles of range in under an hour, but despite these chargers making electric car ownership far easier, there are currently very few available.

Therefore, when looking at charge times 50kW chargers are a better indicator of rapid charging. They are far more common at service stations and en-route stops, making up 22% of the public charging infrastructure. These are still rapid chargers and are capable of topping-up the battery a significant amount within an hour. 

However, just like with a petrol and diesel car, it’s not every day that you stop at a motorway service station to fill up – instead you are only doing short distances around town, stopping at work, the gym and shopping centres. At these urban destinations, the chargers will typically have between 7Kw and 22kW of power. These are ideal for topping up over short periods of time but won’t give you a full battery, but done often enough, there may never be a need to charge from 0-100% again unless you’re embarking on a long-distance trip.

To compare some of the most popular electric cars by charging time, Creditplus have put together an infographic and table. Using the table, and the power supply you anticipate using, you’ll be able to see how much range you’d get from a hour of charging – which could be the remedy to range anxiety.

from Motorlogy http://www.motorlogy.com/how-long-do-electric-cars-take-to-charge-4493/
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