How long to charge your EV
Keep your EV charged and on the road with our guide to charging speeds, charging technologies, and how you can use both to influence how long it takes to charge your EV.
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Fast charging an EV isn’t critical in every situation. With the right know-how and right technology, you can keep EV charging flexible, convenient, and faster than you'd think.
What impacts EV charging time?
Three main factors decide how long your EV takes to charge:
- The charger’s power rating — measured in kilowatts (kW).
- Your car’s onboard charger — which limits how much AC it can convert.
- Battery size and how much range you actually need — topping up 40km is a different story to charging to full from empty.
EV charging options in Australia
DC fast charging (public charging)
Fast chargers — also known as "Mode 4" chargers, super chargers, or rapid chargers — are so named because they're the quickest charging method available for EV drivers.
They're used for public charging because they can recover a large amount of range when time is crucial, such as on road trips or if you're someone who uses your EV for a job that requires a lot of driving around.
DC chargers have a power rating that typically ranges from 25kW to 350kW. In Australia, most highway sites offer 50–150kW, with 300kW popping up on major routes.
AC charging systems
AC chargers — also known as "Mode 3" or wall chargers — are specially installed equipment designed for regular home charging or workplace charging. These range from 3.7kW to 22kW, with 7.4kW being the most common charging power.
For example, the Evnex E2 range is all 7.4kW and designed to operate on single-phase power (which most Aussie homes have). The X22 is built for three-phase homes and businesses, and is rated at 22kW.
3-pin plugs
Portable car chargers — also known as "Mode 2", 3-pin plugs or "granny chargers" — plug directly into a 3-pin household socket and produce the slowest charging speeds. While they are typically provided with an EV, portable chargers are generally not recommended for everyday use. They are best kept on hand as a backup charging method.
How your EV's onboard charger influences charging time
During DC charging, energy is offered directly from a charging station to your vehicle's battery. AC charging requires that the electricity is converted from AC to DC before being stored in your EV's battery.
This means that when charging from an AC charger, your charging speed may be constrained by your car’s onboard charger, even though the AC charger can offer faster charging speeds.
Let’s say you have a 22kW AC home charger installed, but your EV's onboard charger has a maximum charge rate of 6.6kW via its onboard charger. While the AC charger is offering a much higher rate of charge, it is constrained by how fast your vehicle can convert that AC power to DC. In this situation, the highest charging speed your vehicle could achieve using an AC charger would be 6.6kW.
It may seem unnecessary to install a Mode 3 AC charger with a higher capacity than your vehicle supports, but if it's only by a little bit — for example, 7.4kW versus your EV's 6.6kW capacity — it’s worth the upgrade for that extra speed versus a 3-pin plug, and for the improved safety features, solar integration, and scheduling abilities.
There will also be a maximum DC charging rate set by your vehicle manufacturer.
Your EV’s battery pack and how much range you need to recover
How long it takes to charge your EV will ultimately come down to how much range you need to recover.
While stats often show how fast it takes to charge an EV from 0% to 100%, you’ll likely be completing shorter charging sessions more frequently, as home charging offers more flexibility and convenience than going out to re-fuel in large amounts .
The average daily commute is 32-40km in Australia. Using a 7.4kW AC charger, you can recover this range in as little as one hour of charging.
The table below provides a guide to charging times with estimated km/hour of charging. The larger the EV's battery size and the slower the charger, the longer it will take to reach a full charge.
*The information in the above table is approximate and real-world charging speeds will vary depending on an electric vehicle's battery size. This table is based on a vehicle with a 64kWh battery. Only some EVs will accept higher delivery speeds from ultra-rapid chargers.
For DC chargers, we refer to the charging time as the time to reach 80%. This is because the charging rate usually decreases significantly towards the end of the charge. If you're using a DC charger during a long trip, generally you'll only charge to around 80%, as you'll see diminishing returns as you approach 100%.
It's also generally considered good etiquette to stop charging once you reach 80% capacity if there are other drivers waiting to use the public charger.
Glossary
AC — Alternating Current; this is the type of electricity you use in your home.
DC — Direct Current; this is the type of electricity used when charging or consuming energy from a battery.
kW — Kilowatt; a unit of measurement for electrical power. For example, a Generation 2 Nissan Leaf can produce a maximum of around 80kW of power.
kWh — Kilowatt-hour; a unit of electrical energy. If an appliance uses 2kW of power for an hour, then it is said to have used ‘2kWh’ of electricity. Typical electric car batteries range from 24kWh to 100kWh.
Charging station — Typically referring to public chargers on a network.
Charge point — Can refer to any fixed EV charger but is often used when describing public chargers.
