How long does it take to charge my car?

You can charge your electric car at home, at the office or at any public electric charging station. Fully charging can be done in as short as 15 – 20 minutes at fast charging stations or can take as long as half a day depending on how big the battery is, or the speed that your charging point can charge.

The maximum charging speed  is dependent on your electric vehicle. If the max charging speed of your vehicle is for instance 50 kW, you will not be able to charge quicker than that, not even at a fast charger. 

There are many other variables that can also influence the speed of charging. The emptier the battery, the quicker it charges. The colder the battery, the slower it will charge. Whilst charging, the battery temperature will rise, and so will the charging speed. Some vehicles include the feature of automatically pre-heating the battery, when a fast charger is set as destination in the vehicle’s navigation system. 

To best maintain the battery health and optimal charge time of your electric vehicle, it is advisable to stick to a charge level of between 20% – 80%.

Most cars achieve a maximum charging speed of 11 kW with regular charging (AC) but making use of fast charging services (DC) will allow you to speed up your charging sessions.

Smappee’s EV line of charging stations offers charging between 22 kW for the EV One, EV Wall and EV Base, up to 400 kW fast charging with the EV Ultra.

Example of charging with the Smappee EV line of chargers:
Car X has a battery of 80 kWh. If you want to charge it from 20% to 80% it will take approximately, 4 hours (11 kW, if your car has this max charging speed) or 2 hours (22 kW) to charge with the EV One, EV Wall and EV Base and 20 minutes with the EV Ultra (200kW)