Which Electric Cars Charge The Fastest

When you ask a simple question, you normally expect a simple answer, right?
The problem with asking “which EVs charge the fastest” is while some may think it’s a simple inquiry, it really isn’t. In fact, if we had to put asterisks on the highly qualified answers for the 10 electric cars sold in America, we’d need asterisks for the asterisks.
But for those of you who grew up accustomed to quicker gratification – from such experiences as drive-in restaurants, and, well, quick-filling gas stations for example – the list is under “EV Recharge Times” below.
If you want an easy answer, go ahead and skip over the following qualifier sections if you dare.

Asterisks And More Asterisks

Are you still here? Cool. We’ll try to keep this simple and more interesting than the fine print for a credit card app, or what have you.
Rule number one is, assuming an “empty” battery, EV charge times depend on the kilowatt-hours (kwh) of the battery being charged, and how fast it will accept juice.
For example, the Mitsubishi i-MiEV has the smallest (16-kwh) battery and the Tesla Model S comes with the largest 60-kwh or 85-kwh battery.
All conditions being equal, a larger battery takes more energy, and this should mean a longer recharge time.

But we warned you answers need qualification. Believe it or not, in this case Tesla has figured a way for people at home to cram electricity back into its 4-5 times larger packs much faster than the i-MiEV, but we’ll explain this later.
Another factor to be mindful of is the electric current delivered by the charger. Actually, the “charger” is not the device with a cord you plug into the car. The “charger” is the on-board charger built into the car – often 3.3 kw, or 6.6, kw, and in the case of Tesla, 10 kw or a pair equaling 20 kw.
The rate at which the car’s on-board charger passes juice to the battery pack makes for an effective bottleneck. As a loose analogy, with a garden hose you can’t very easily water your lawn faster than the hose will allow, can you? So it is with the charger. It delivers electricity at a certain maximum rate, and that’s it.

Nissan Leaf with aftermarket charger installed.

(Of course if someone retrofitted a faster on-board charger, aside from voiding the warranty and other possible problems, he or she might charge the car quicker, but we’ll leave this discussion at that).
And if these aren’t enough qualifiers for you, consider also the “EVSE” (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment). Often mislabeled the “charger,” these matter as do the amount of volts and amps of the circuit it’s plugged into.
To sort of level the playing field, our list below focuses on official manufacturer ratings for 240 volt – AKA “level 2″ or “220” volt – power fed through a “charger” (actually the blandly titled EVSE.)
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