Speed Kills? Not Here!
Back in July, we posted on the efficiency of electric vehicles, or EVs, using miles per kilowatt as the metric. You can see that post here.
But whose electric vehicles have the fastest charging speed?
We promised to then post on charging efficiency or charging speed when DC, or Level 3, charging. This proved to be a really difficult nut to crack as manufacturers throw numbers around that are near meaningless and mostly self serving. Whatever number makes their car or cars look good, they will use. There is no standard metric. Or at least there wasn’t until now.
The Real Pros
Enter Edmunds.com. Working with P3, they have the resources and the access to do this properly and have researched the topic which has culminated in their article, Which EVs Charge the Fastest? The link will take you there.
So we will defer to them on the topic — they will do it best, and have already done it. By all means when doing research on your next or first EV, check out their work.
They tested charge rates when batteries are at 10% charge and charged only to 80%, which is exactly how you should charge your car at a DC or Level 3 charge station. By stopping at 80% charge, you spare a battery’s overall lifespan and better maintain its long-term performance. Charging power for most, if not all, vehicles also significantly slows beyond 80% (see the charge curve and discussion below), so it’s generally best to unplug at that point. Its the best use of your time as well as the car’s battery and frees up the charging station.
We’ll make one notable observation. In our efficiency research, Hyundai’s fleet was second only to Lucid and tied with Tesla. You can see it in our previous post. Edmunds testing places two Hyundai models and one Kia — same manufacturer — at the very top of charging speed! So, not only does Hyundai come in with the best range but many of their models charge the fastest as well!
Edmund’s leaderboard is here. They use an interesting metric of miles added per hour while DC charging, leading to numbers that do not reflect range! The Ioniq 6 adds range (charges) at 868 miles per hour! This does not mean that the car will go 868 miles when done charging. It means it will hit its roughly 300 mile range and be done charging well before the rest of the field!
The next fastest charging model that is not a Hyundai or Kia is the Porsche Taycan at 690 miles per hour, a full 20% less. The first Tesla is the Model 3 at 569 mi/hr, 35% slower than the Ioniq 6.
A final note here. All EVs feature a charge curve, like the one shown below from P3. It’s a little difficult to read, but reading it is not the point (you can read it here). All of vehicles shown behave in a very similar fashion, and yours will too. They start fast and finish slow. It is the nature of today’s battery technology and stopping at 80% is best for you, the battery and the charging public. Adding another 10% could take as long as the first 70!
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Remember that only proper service and repair procedures will ensure the safe and reliable operation of your car. In addition, proper safety procedures and precautions, such as the use of safety goggles, the right tools and the equipment should be followed at all times to eliminate the possibility of personal injury or improper service which could damage the vehicle or compromise its safety.
These posts are for information sharing purposes only, and should not be used in lieu of an OEM service manual or factory authorized service procedure. We are not in the auto repair business nor do we publish automotive service manuals. Nothing we include on these pages and posts has been reviewed, approved or authorized by any vehicle manufacturer.
The author has 25 years of automotive experience and has assembled the most extensive collection of symbols and warning lights anywhere (over 1,000!) and can help you open and start any keyless start car with a dead key fob battery. BA, St. Joseph’s College, ME: MS, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, NY
Electric Cars, Autonomous Cars – They’re Just Cars!
An EV Is Just a Car
I have been pondering some items related to electric cars and autonomous cars, and in particular how messy even the automotive press treats these subjects.
Which is point one. While the development of autonomous cars is expanding seemingly in tandem with electric cars, they are in fact separate and distinct. More on that later.
It has four wheels, a steering wheel, a pedal or pedals, seating for a driver and passengers, etc. In the end, it’s just a car! The propulsion system is the only real change. The advantage with the Model 3 or any electric car is that an owner gets to leave home every day with a full tank of fuel, assuming charging can be accomplished there.
In the meantime, Chevrolet released its Bolt fully electric car and Nissan has updated the Leaf, already fully electric. And what does the press do? It compares the Bolt and Leaf to the Model 3! This is akin to comparing a Honda Civic to a BMW 3 Series. The only thing the Bolt and Leaf have in common with the Model 3 is battery power, period. Talk of range is in parallel to talk of fuel mileage. The Civic wins, but the BMW buyer couldn’t care less!
Where’s the Appeal?
That said, while the Civic outsells the 3 Series, the Model 3 will eat the Bolt’s lunch on style alone. Electric cars a not so mainstream that value purchasers are driving market volume. So until BMW or Audi or Lexus, etc releases a pure electric – not electrified – model that looks like it belongs to their family of cars,
the Model 3 will stand alone.
Sorry BMW, while upcoming changes are a plus, the current i3 simply looks like a toy with a matching grill. Until value buyers begin opting for electric- rather than gas-powered cars in general, the Model 3 will outsell all comers.
One would think that they had learned something from Tesla’s success and they’re own failures from the past.
Developments do point to the acceptance of electric cars. I ran across a wonderful quote in an article from Automotive News recently. It noted that Volkswagen founder Ferdinand Porsche had shown an electric car with motors in the wheel hubs at the 1900 Paris World Exhibition. One hundred seventeen years ago! The suggestion was that the oil boom that occurred at about the same time set the current auto industry in motion (pun intended).
Ulrich Eichhorn, corporate research manager at Volkswagen Group is then quoted as saying: “If the technologies had been reversed, it would be hard to conceive an engineer now successfully proposing that combustion engines replace electric cars. Imagine that person would say, ‘Rather than having maximum torque available from the start like an electric car, it had to ramp up over time.’
“Imagine he then said it involved a device where thousands of tiny explosions occur every minute using a toxic and highly flammable liquid that had to be stored in the vehicle somewhere. And then imagine him saying that this fuel came almost entirely from crisis regions. What do you think his boss might have said to him?”
Oh an interesting question indeed.
Which brings me back to autonomous cars. In the middle of what was painted as a discussion about electric cars, I heard the following (it is paraphrased because I didn’t save the content): cars are like guns in the U.S., its freedom, don’t try and take them away.
This left me scratching my head until I realized that electric propulsion had been confused or paired with autonomous technology! The electric car, regardless of make and model, is still just a car. Just as the comparison of electric cars on range alone is a massive mistake, merging the rise of autonomous technology with electric propulsion also misses the mark.
Any move to force autonomous driving is decades off, assuming it ever occurs. But perhaps by then, jumping into the car to take a weekend drive without actually having to do any work at all will seem very, very appealing.
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Remember that only proper service and repair procedures will ensure the safe and reliable operation of your car. In addition, proper safety procedures and precautions, such as the use of safety goggles, the right tools and the equipment should be followed at all times to eliminate the possibility of personal injury or improper service which could damage the vehicle or compromise its safety.
These posts are for information sharing purposes only, and should not be used in lieu of an OEM service manual or factory authorized service procedure. We are not in the auto repair business nor do we publish automotive service manuals. Nothing we include on these pages and posts has been reviewed, approved or authorized by any vehicle manufacturer.
Technology is always changing and what is current and accurate today may be literally out-of-date and inaccurate tomorrow. And when it comes to the current state of flux in the auto industry, nothing is more true.
The author has 25 years of automotive experience and has assembled the most extensive collection of symbols and warning lights anywhere (over 1,000!) and can help you open and start any keyless start car with a dead key fob battery. BA, St. Joseph’s College, ME: MS, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, NY