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Traveling USA coast to coast a Kia spent about 7 hours of travel time charging whereas a Tesla in an earlier trip spent about 12 hours. Whether this means charg

Traveling USA coast to coast a Kia spent about 7 hours of travel time charging whereas a Tesla in an earlier trip spent about 12 hours. Whether this means chargers have gotten faster or cars are charging faster or something else is hard to tell.

dogsgobork 5y ago
Someone did a cannonball run in a Tesla in October, and also only charged for about 7 hours on their coast to coast run. https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a38095522/ev-cannonball-record-tesla-model-s/ https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a38095522/ev-cannonball-re...
jinto36 5y ago
And it could easily be that the Tesla was driven faster, and thus with less regard to how much range they could get between charges.
manmal 5y ago
The Kia has an 800V charging system so it's bound to charge way faster than most 400V systems (like Tesla's) as long as the charger supports it (which Kia certainly made sure of while planning the route for this trip). 800V charging is certainly rare and super expensive right now - e.g. Ionity in Europe charges 79 cents per kWh, which is 4+ times more expensive than charging at home - but eventually it should become standard.
- speedgoose 5y ago
  Well, the charging speed is about watts, not volts. On a 400V system you simply need to pull more amps. power = amps * volts. 800V allows cheaper cabling, but that has nothing to do with the charging rate of the battery cells.
  - theluketaylor 5y ago
    CCS has a 500 amp cap in the spec, so here is a limit to how fast 400V batteries can be charged on public infrastructure. Going to 800V removes that limitation as well. Tesla doesn’t care since they control everything and can ramp up the amps, but all other cars that want to charge more than 200 kW need to have higher voltage batteries.
    - speedgoose 5y ago
      True, but all these cars are quite far from having a flat 200kW charging curve anyway.
      - theluketaylor 5y ago
        No charging curve is flat (apart from e-tron, but I don’t see anyone devoting that much unusable buffer ever again), but taycan can sustain more than 200 kW past 30% state of charge. Ionic 5’s curve is weird, but it can sustain more than 200 kW between 30 and 50% state of charge. We haven’t seen a lucid air’s curve yet, but inside EVs reports it can crack 300 kW and have hinted it’s extremely good and will be publishing in the next couple days. As people switch to EVs range anxiety is a big thing, but once I became an owner I realized charge curve mattered way more than static range. I’d rather dump charge in at low state of charge and make a couple more short stops than sit around waiting to get to 80+% as the curve tapers.
      - manmal 5y ago
        The curve doesn’t need to be flat to benefit from peak flow above 200kW. Cars in later generations will likely charge above 200kW in the 20-80% SOC range. Higher voltage also reduces power losses. Not sure what you are arguing against here, to be honest - are you defending Tesla‘s system? Slow charging is one of the main arguments against EVs, it’s great that this is finally being fixed.
ajross 5y ago
> a Tesla in an earlier trip It was a Model S P85D in 2015! Here's the original source, FWIW. InsideEVs basically dug around to find something comparable and called it a "record": https://insideevs.com/news/548679/kia-ev6-charging-record-us/ https://insideevs.com/news/548679/kia-ev6-charging-record-us...
deleted 5y ago
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jhgb 5y ago
> or something else I'd vote for "something else" since the old trip took 2.4 days (~90 km/h on average) while the new one took 7 days (~27 km/h on average).

dogsgobork 5y ago

Someone did a cannonball run in a Tesla in October, and also only charged for about 7 hours on their coast to coast run. https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a38095522/ev-cannonball-record-tesla-model-s/ https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a38095522/ev-cannonball-re...

jinto36 5y ago

And it could easily be that the Tesla was driven faster, and thus with less regard to how much range they could get between charges.

manmal 5y ago

The Kia has an 800V charging system so it's bound to charge way faster than most 400V systems (like Tesla's) as long as the charger supports it (which Kia certainly made sure of while planning the route for this trip). 800V charging is certainly rare and super expensive right now - e.g. Ionity in Europe charges 79 cents per kWh, which is 4+ times more expensive than charging at home - but eventually it should become standard.

speedgoose 5y ago
Well, the charging speed is about watts, not volts. On a 400V system you simply need to pull more amps. power = amps * volts. 800V allows cheaper cabling, but that has nothing to do with the charging rate of the battery cells.
- theluketaylor 5y ago
  CCS has a 500 amp cap in the spec, so here is a limit to how fast 400V batteries can be charged on public infrastructure. Going to 800V removes that limitation as well. Tesla doesn’t care since they control everything and can ramp up the amps, but all other cars that want to charge more than 200 kW need to have higher voltage batteries.
  - speedgoose 5y ago
    True, but all these cars are quite far from having a flat 200kW charging curve anyway.
    - theluketaylor 5y ago
      No charging curve is flat (apart from e-tron, but I don’t see anyone devoting that much unusable buffer ever again), but taycan can sustain more than 200 kW past 30% state of charge. Ionic 5’s curve is weird, but it can sustain more than 200 kW between 30 and 50% state of charge. We haven’t seen a lucid air’s curve yet, but inside EVs reports it can crack 300 kW and have hinted it’s extremely good and will be publishing in the next couple days. As people switch to EVs range anxiety is a big thing, but once I became an owner I realized charge curve mattered way more than static range. I’d rather dump charge in at low state of charge and make a couple more short stops than sit around waiting to get to 80+% as the curve tapers.
    - manmal 5y ago
      The curve doesn’t need to be flat to benefit from peak flow above 200kW. Cars in later generations will likely charge above 200kW in the 20-80% SOC range. Higher voltage also reduces power losses. Not sure what you are arguing against here, to be honest - are you defending Tesla‘s system? Slow charging is one of the main arguments against EVs, it’s great that this is finally being fixed.

ajross 5y ago

> a Tesla in an earlier trip It was a Model S P85D in 2015! Here's the original source, FWIW. InsideEVs basically dug around to find something comparable and called it a "record": https://insideevs.com/news/548679/kia-ev6-charging-record-us/ https://insideevs.com/news/548679/kia-ev6-charging-record-us...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jhgb 5y ago

> or something else I'd vote for "something else" since the old trip took 2.4 days (~90 km/h on average) while the new one took 7 days (~27 km/h on average).