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This is quickly becoming outdated.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

by andjd 4y ago

This is quickly becoming outdated.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.

protomyth 4y ago
Which car can be fully charged in 15 minutes? I've looked and cannot find one except some supercars that are way out of reach.
- natch 4y ago
  “fully” charged is a red herring, and foolish in practice.
  - protomyth 4y ago
    Ok, which car can charge to 300+ miles in 15 minutes? I can fill my car in 15 minutes and get another 300+ miles.
    - tomtheelder 4y ago
      Obviously you can't do that, and no one is arguing that a "full tank" type EV fillup is as fast as it is with an ICE vehicle. But as an EV owner, long (like multi hundred mile) trips are the only time I would ever do that. Otherwise it's just frequent top ups while I'm at home or doing errands or whatever. So from my perspective the time to charge to full is kind of a red herring unless you are someone who regularly does like 300+ mile trips.
      - protomyth 4y ago
        Well, I am someone who regularly does 300+ mile trips and I currently have a hybrid but they are not great on highways (for obvious reasons). Time of charge is a big component of my next buying decision.
        tomtheelder 4y ago
        Fair enough! I think in general this topic gets brought up too much since most people do drives like that rarely if ever, but if you do then an ICE vehicle or hybrid might still be your best option.
        natch 4y ago
        Time of charge is fastest if you have some headroom in your range. In other words it’s a lot faster to charge to 80%, as charging slows as you get higher. Keep that in mind when buying so you don’t make the mistake of buying lower range.
    - natch 4y ago
      Try 9 minutes, one stop, to get from the bay area to LA. It’s not as fast to fill as a smelly ICE car, but it’s not too shabby at all and a lot more fun and safe to drive. The numbers are contrived.
- filoleg 4y ago
  "Fully" is a bad metric for this, because charging on EVs tends to be extremely non-linear. For example, let me approximate the numbers I had at a recent supercharger stop. It took me about 15 mins to charge from 3% to 60%. Then another 10-15 mins from 60% to 80%. Then another 15 mins from 80% to 90%. In general, for better battery life and to not waste your time, it is recommended to charge to 90% or below. And that wasn't the most recent gen supercharger. At some, I had personally seen peak charging speed of 580+ mi/hr.
  - kcplate 4y ago
    Here is how I reacted to this: “Damn…it took this person 40+ minutes to almost fill up their car”
    - filoleg 4y ago
      I only do a full charge for a long trip. Normally, i just charge in my apt garage overnight or at work, and the car is already full every single day i wake up, zero time spent. And if i am in a rush, i just charge at a supercharger for that quick 15 min charge to 60% and go along. I guess I am just not bothered much by taking a short break after multiple hours of driving. And the costs being much cheaper than gas (about $17-18 for full tank at a supercharger, virtually free at my apt building or work) kinda helps.
      - kcplate 4y ago
        It’s just a mental shift us non-EV owners need to make. Starting every day with a full charge has value for sure.
- speedgoose 4y ago
  You cannot charge fast past a high state of charge, mostly because you don’t want to overload the battery cells by having a too high voltage. Cars that charge that fast to 100% either do not care about not destroying the battery, which makes sense in a racing context without sustainability concerns, or the 100% reported by the battery management system is a lot lower than the maximum state of charge possible. That’s why you cannot find common electric cars that charge to 100% in 15 minutes. But you will find some that can charge fast for 15 minutes and that’s what matters.
  - shortstuffsushi 4y ago
    This and the sibling comments seem to prove the (grand)parent's point though; you can "charge fast" (apparently to 60-80%) in 15-30 min, which leaves you with a less-than-full-distance capacity in a longer time compared with an ICE which is "5 min and full capacity." That doesn't mean that electric cars aren't good, but it means they are slower (less distance, more down time) - this is good enough for most local traffic situations, though.
    - vel0city 4y ago
      With "local traffic distances", my ICE has been slower overall. I spent ~3 hours on "charging" time driving around town last year, while I've waited 0 minutes waiting on my EV. That's 3 hours of downtime with my ICE, 0 minutes of downtime with my EV. Which one resulted in more downtime again?
      - shortstuffsushi 4y ago
        You have commented this on a handful of subthreads, but I feel like you're missing the goal of the argument. If you want "instant recharge," gas wins. I understand that charging overnight will work in most cases, I understand you have a window of perhaps as much as two weeks to find a single night to do it, etc. Similarly, for the sake of argument, I could keep a gas pump in my garage to fill up at night, which would mean I had "0 minutes of downtime" as well. In most cases having a battery will get you from A to B without issue - same on a tank of gas. When it won't, you will spend more time waiting on the battery to charge, which is a tradeoff that is probably still worthwhile for the vast majority of people.
mrfusion 4y ago
Not only that but for those five minute gas fill ups you can’t really leave the pump. Maybe a 20 minute fill up where you can do other things at the same time isn’t that much worse.
- shortstuffsushi 4y ago
  Seems highly contextual. If I can charge at the grocery store - great. If I forgot to plug in last night and can't quite make the trip into work, 15-30 min is going to be a problem.
  - Guvante 4y ago
    Most commutes are 30 miles round trip at the high end. Given a capacity of 400 miles as was quoted above you would need to forget to plug in for over a week to have any issues. Not having enough electricity to make it to work is akin to not having enough gasoline for most local trips.
  - vel0city 4y ago
    > If I forgot to plug in last night and can't quite make the trip into work Assuming a 30 mile round-trip commute, I'd have to forget to plug it in 6 times before I would run into this issue my car with ~200mi of range. I've had more times where I needed to be sure to stop and get gas before I head to the office than I've had times where I had to wait for my EV to charge before I head in.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  > Not only that but for those five minute gas fill ups you can’t really leave the pump. The part where you can't leave the pump shouldn't be longer than 1-1.5 minutes.
  - vel0city 4y ago
    You should try timing it sometime. It usually takes me about 2-3 minutes to pump the almost 18 gallons of capacity into my fuel tank. Pumps in the US aren't allowed to go faster than 10gal/minute, lots around me seem to go much slower than that max speed.

by andjd 4y ago

protomyth 4y ago

Which car can be fully charged in 15 minutes? I've looked and cannot find one except some supercars that are way out of reach.

natch 4y ago
“fully” charged is a red herring, and foolish in practice.
- protomyth 4y ago
  Ok, which car can charge to 300+ miles in 15 minutes? I can fill my car in 15 minutes and get another 300+ miles.
  - tomtheelder 4y ago
    Obviously you can't do that, and no one is arguing that a "full tank" type EV fillup is as fast as it is with an ICE vehicle. But as an EV owner, long (like multi hundred mile) trips are the only time I would ever do that. Otherwise it's just frequent top ups while I'm at home or doing errands or whatever. So from my perspective the time to charge to full is kind of a red herring unless you are someone who regularly does like 300+ mile trips.
    - protomyth 4y ago
      Well, I am someone who regularly does 300+ mile trips and I currently have a hybrid but they are not great on highways (for obvious reasons). Time of charge is a big component of my next buying decision.
      - tomtheelder 4y ago
        Fair enough! I think in general this topic gets brought up too much since most people do drives like that rarely if ever, but if you do then an ICE vehicle or hybrid might still be your best option.
      - natch 4y ago
        Time of charge is fastest if you have some headroom in your range. In other words it’s a lot faster to charge to 80%, as charging slows as you get higher. Keep that in mind when buying so you don’t make the mistake of buying lower range.
  - natch 4y ago
    Try 9 minutes, one stop, to get from the bay area to LA. It’s not as fast to fill as a smelly ICE car, but it’s not too shabby at all and a lot more fun and safe to drive. The numbers are contrived.
filoleg 4y ago
"Fully" is a bad metric for this, because charging on EVs tends to be extremely non-linear. For example, let me approximate the numbers I had at a recent supercharger stop. It took me about 15 mins to charge from 3% to 60%. Then another 10-15 mins from 60% to 80%. Then another 15 mins from 80% to 90%. In general, for better battery life and to not waste your time, it is recommended to charge to 90% or below. And that wasn't the most recent gen supercharger. At some, I had personally seen peak charging speed of 580+ mi/hr.
- kcplate 4y ago
  Here is how I reacted to this: “Damn…it took this person 40+ minutes to almost fill up their car”
  - filoleg 4y ago
    I only do a full charge for a long trip. Normally, i just charge in my apt garage overnight or at work, and the car is already full every single day i wake up, zero time spent. And if i am in a rush, i just charge at a supercharger for that quick 15 min charge to 60% and go along. I guess I am just not bothered much by taking a short break after multiple hours of driving. And the costs being much cheaper than gas (about $17-18 for full tank at a supercharger, virtually free at my apt building or work) kinda helps.
    - kcplate 4y ago
      It’s just a mental shift us non-EV owners need to make. Starting every day with a full charge has value for sure.
speedgoose 4y ago
You cannot charge fast past a high state of charge, mostly because you don’t want to overload the battery cells by having a too high voltage. Cars that charge that fast to 100% either do not care about not destroying the battery, which makes sense in a racing context without sustainability concerns, or the 100% reported by the battery management system is a lot lower than the maximum state of charge possible. That’s why you cannot find common electric cars that charge to 100% in 15 minutes. But you will find some that can charge fast for 15 minutes and that’s what matters.
- shortstuffsushi 4y ago
  This and the sibling comments seem to prove the (grand)parent's point though; you can "charge fast" (apparently to 60-80%) in 15-30 min, which leaves you with a less-than-full-distance capacity in a longer time compared with an ICE which is "5 min and full capacity." That doesn't mean that electric cars aren't good, but it means they are slower (less distance, more down time) - this is good enough for most local traffic situations, though.
  - vel0city 4y ago
    With "local traffic distances", my ICE has been slower overall. I spent ~3 hours on "charging" time driving around town last year, while I've waited 0 minutes waiting on my EV. That's 3 hours of downtime with my ICE, 0 minutes of downtime with my EV. Which one resulted in more downtime again?
    - shortstuffsushi 4y ago
      You have commented this on a handful of subthreads, but I feel like you're missing the goal of the argument. If you want "instant recharge," gas wins. I understand that charging overnight will work in most cases, I understand you have a window of perhaps as much as two weeks to find a single night to do it, etc. Similarly, for the sake of argument, I could keep a gas pump in my garage to fill up at night, which would mean I had "0 minutes of downtime" as well. In most cases having a battery will get you from A to B without issue - same on a tank of gas. When it won't, you will spend more time waiting on the battery to charge, which is a tradeoff that is probably still worthwhile for the vast majority of people.

mrfusion 4y ago

Not only that but for those five minute gas fill ups you can’t really leave the pump. Maybe a 20 minute fill up where you can do other things at the same time isn’t that much worse.

shortstuffsushi 4y ago
Seems highly contextual. If I can charge at the grocery store - great. If I forgot to plug in last night and can't quite make the trip into work, 15-30 min is going to be a problem.
- Guvante 4y ago
  Most commutes are 30 miles round trip at the high end. Given a capacity of 400 miles as was quoted above you would need to forget to plug in for over a week to have any issues. Not having enough electricity to make it to work is akin to not having enough gasoline for most local trips.
- vel0city 4y ago
  > If I forgot to plug in last night and can't quite make the trip into work Assuming a 30 mile round-trip commute, I'd have to forget to plug it in 6 times before I would run into this issue my car with ~200mi of range. I've had more times where I needed to be sure to stop and get gas before I head to the office than I've had times where I had to wait for my EV to charge before I head in.
Dylan16807 4y ago
> Not only that but for those five minute gas fill ups you can’t really leave the pump. The part where you can't leave the pump shouldn't be longer than 1-1.5 minutes.
- vel0city 4y ago
  You should try timing it sometime. It usually takes me about 2-3 minutes to pump the almost 18 gallons of capacity into my fuel tank. Pumps in the US aren't allowed to go faster than 10gal/minute, lots around me seem to go much slower than that max speed.