The latest generation of cars and chargers don't need an hour to charge. A Tesla Model 3 can already charge at 250 kW, which is over 1000 miles per hour. Practically speaking, that means a decent charge in less than 20 minutes. On a long trip, most stops for gas take around that long anyway by the time you use the restroom, buy supplies, eat, etc.
The newest chargers being installed today go up to 350 kW, so the charging infrastructure is being future-proofed for even faster charging as the cars improve.
This is becoming less true every year. Tesla now has 250kW superchargers, and there are even 350kW CCS chargers starting to be installed. In practice, for a Model 3, this means that you can charge the battery up to about half in 15 minutes.
For a long day of driving, say, 700 miles, assuming charging available at both ends, this means two charging stops of 15 minutes each instead of one gas stop of 5 minutes.
IMO while this can always be improved, this is now at the "good enough" point for long distance driving. Obviously to make this a true reality, there needs to be widespread charging available in parking lots, and more 250kW Superchargers, but progress towards this is rapid.
Charging a range of 250 km (155 mi) in just under 4 minutes is crazy. For comparison: A Tesla Model 3 takes around 22 minutes to reach that range at a consumption of 18.7 kWh/100km when using fast charging.
Why is a fast charger 1-4 hours a week? You can do an 80% charge in a Tesla Model 3 in 24 minutes with the new generation of Superchargers, https://electrek.co/2019/07/02/tesla-supercharger-v3-range-m.... That will only improve in the coming years. 1-4 hours is not a valid charge time even now.
It only takes ~20mins to charge a Tesla from 10% to 85% at a SuperCharger station. For 3 stops, he likely only added ~45 mins. If you round up and add time getting on/off the highway, plugging in and unplugging, he maybe added an hour to the overall trip. Newer Superchargers (v3) are higher power and reduce the charge time further.
According to Tesla's website, it takes 30 min to charge with a supercharger. That seems much less convenient than the 2 or so minutes it takes to fill a tank.
With the newer 350kW charging stations you can charge up to 80% in about 15 minutes (ie. for a Model S battery). So not much more than filling up with gas. Granted cars which support this will be available at the earliest next year.
Recharging with fast chargers, e.g. superchargers, should take between 30-40 minutes. And ranges over 300 miles are available too, so a lot of use cases are already covered, and things are getting better still. So the reasonable audience for electric cars is already much larger than the current market share.
Most electric cars won't be charged at fast chargers most of the time. Because unlike fossil cars you can refuel them pretty much anywhere where there is electricity. At first this is only true for people with garages (or employers with a garage), but eventually most parking spots will have a slow charger installed. Since the typical car is parked for about 23h a day, charging time becomes a non issue as soon as charger availability is good enough. Fast charging is really only necessary for long roadtrips that exceed whatever range the car has.
I think the charging speed of most EVs are expected to improve for all cars in the coming years due to better batteries and battery management.
Affordable EVs these days, for example the ID.3 or ID.4 do 125KW charging, at least up to a certain point. Teslas are not much better. Yes, the Model 3 can charge much faster than this, but only for a short time until it will throttle down significantly.
For this reason though, charging only a little makes even more sense. Bringing your battery from 10% to 50% should be relatively fast no matter which car you have. The last 50% will take much longer.
Once the car throttles down the charging speed, you are probably better off finding another charger an hour or two away - unless you're planning a longer stay.
Hours? Is that hyperbole or are the chargers really slow in Norway? At a Supercharger, a Tesla Model 3 charges from 0-50% in under 15 minutes, 0-80% in 30 minutes and 0-100% in an hour.
> Even “fast” chargers are going to continue to be slow (a Tesla supercharger takes over an hour for a full charge)
80% in 30 minutes, which gets you to the next Supercharger. You don't want to fuel to 100% whenever possible, as its slower than pouring electrons into an empty battery.
This is quickly becoming outdated. Fast-charging times of about 15 minutes are possible in the US with currently existing infrastructure and vehicles, and this speed is likely to keep improving as the tech gets better. And for the typical daily driving needs of most people, plugging in to charge overnight is sufficient, so you only need to worry about charging times in rare occurrences, such as when taking a road trip.
This isn’t discussed very often, but if you have an old model, like we do, the Charging a Tesla takes forever. Out 225 mile range battery takes 1.5-2 hours to get to full charge.
Some would say that’s not necessary, but there are certain stretches of the road where we came down to Zero miles, after having full 100% charge.
It doesn’t feel great to almost run out of power at midnight with two young kids, in the middle of nowhere.
The newest chargers being installed today go up to 350 kW, so the charging infrastructure is being future-proofed for even faster charging as the cars improve.
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