The most useless number when it comes to electric cars is certainly charging time from zero percent. Why? Because no one is waiting for their battery to be completely empty to recharge their vehicle. Also, how often does someone return home with a completely empty battery?

EV drivers will drive throughout the day, come home with a certain amount of power in their car and still plug it to charge over night to have the full battery ready by the next morning.

Most electric vehicle owners charge at home. When taking long-distance trips, charging time matters. But very few drivers will come to the highway DC fast-charger with 0%. Thus, it’s not much helpful from car makers to state charging time from 0-80% in just, let’s say, 40 minutes.

For example, Hyundai states that Kona Electric gets 80% of battery charged in 75 minutes at 50 kW or 54 minutes at 100 kW. Considering all the other variables (charger capacity, temperature…) these numbers are not helpful.

So, numbers presenting charging time from zero percent are not useful and may be misleading. Much better choice for car makers and would be to state charging time in a different way. How many miles you can drive with 30 min. of charging would be much more useful information for EV drivers.

Good example is Chevrolet which states the charging time in a different way – “90 miles in 30 minutes”.

Source: Insideev