Car Charging Times

As with any device powered by a battery, charging time is an extremely important factor when making a purchase decision. So, how long does it take to charge an electric car? It does depend on a few factors that we’ll outline below, but perhaps a more valuable way to look at car charging is by the rate that it charges. When charging at home, most fully electric vehicles will charge at a rate of 15-25 miles of range per hour.

Frequent Charging vs. Zero to Full

Unlike your current gasoline powered car or even your cell phone, you will somewhat rarely be charging your car from zero to full. So, thinking in terms of how long it will take to fully charge your vehicle is not as helpful in your day-to-day. This, of course, is different if you drive near your vehicle’s max range each day or you are on a long road trip. Other than that, you’ll probably just charge it a little bit each day and never have to worry about the full time to charge.

Most Americans typically drive 25-40 miles each day in your car. Since most fully electric vehicles have ranges over 200 miles, you won’t come close to using the whole range in a single day. Charging at home generally means you can get about 15-25 miles of range per hour of charging, depending on some of the factors listed below. That means, when you get home for the evening and park your car in the garage, you can plug your vehicle in and have it charged up in just a couple of hours.

If you do manage to nearly empty the battery on a long road trip or just a couple days of heavy driving, you still won’t be in trouble. For road trips, most vehicles can use what are called DC fast chargers which can charge your car up to 80% in as little as 30 minutes. That should give you enough time to pull over, grab a snack, check the directions, and get going again!

When you have an empty battery and you’re charging at home, you can generally fill it all the way back up in about 10 hours. Again, this depends a lot on your vehicle, the charger you’re using, and your home. But this is a good rule of thumb and means that if you get home one night with an empty battery, you should be ready to go by the next morning with a full or nearly full range for the next day.

Charging Time Factors

Vehicle

This is probably the most important factor in determining the time it will take to charge your electric vehicle. Each car will have a different charging rate and range so the time it takes to fully charge will depend heavily on the vehicle. The main factor for this is whether you have a fully electric vehicle or a plug-in hybrid vehicle. Plug-in hybrid vehicles have smaller batteries and a shorter range of electric driving, so they don’t need as much energy stored. That means, they typically charge at a slower rate (12 miles of range per hour) while a fully electric vehicle will charge faster (20-25 miles of range per hour).

Charger Type

Another important factor is what type of charger you are using. As mentioned before, a DC fast charger can give you an 80% charge very quickly and are great for charging on the road. Most of your charging will happen at home (about 85% of charging happens at home) and you won’t be able to use a DC fast charger at home.

Most plug-in vehicles come with a charge cord that you can plug directly into a normal house outlet (often called a 110 volt or 120 volt outlet). While this will charge your vehicle, it will be very slow and is not a good option if you have a fully electric vehicle. Using this method, you can expect at most 4 miles of range per hour of charging. That might work if you have a plug-in hybrid car that has a 40 mile electric range, because plugging it in overnight will give you a near full charge. But a fully electric vehicle will have a range over 200 miles, so it will be tough to depend on 4 miles of range per hour.

For your house, you’ll get what is called a Level 2 charger that can give your car between 15-25 miles of range per hour that it is charging. If you’re driving a fully electric vehicle (like a Bolt EV or a Tesla) it will be 20-25 miles of range per hour. This is very common, and just takes an electrician to install correctly and safely.

These Level 2 chargers use 240 volt outlets that require an electrician to install them (do not install them yourself unless you have significant experience as an electrician) because it can be very dangerous if done incorrectly. These chargers are the ones you’ve seen pictures of that are mounted on the wall in a garage and have a cord you take off of them to plug into your vehicle. They are extremely convenient and take only a few seconds to plug in.

Current Battery Level

Without getting into too much detail about battery chemistry, batteries will charge fastest up to 80% full then they slow down the charging rate after that. You may have noticed this on your smartphone, it goes from 0% to 80% in 30 minutes or so then takes another 30 minutes to get to 100%. Electric cars work the same way and it contributes to the total charging time.

The approximate charging rates we’ve talked about here (20-25 miles of range per hour) generally refer to that time when the battery is below 80% capacity, which means you’ll charge a bit slower after that.