The US would not have five-minute fast-charging for electrical autos like China does. That is simply an unlucky actuality. But it surely does not imply that EVs on the market over right here aren’t making great progress at charging extra shortly.
You will pay high greenback for them, however proper now, America’s fast-charging kings are the 2025 Porsche Taycan and the 2026 Lucid Gravity. Each automobiles boast high-voltage electrical architecturessuperior motors and batteries and a laser-focus on each effectivity and getting you again on the highway as shortly as doable.
The Gravity can theoretically settle for as much as 400 kW of peak charging energy, whereas the Taycan is rated at as much as 320 kW. However given the Taycan has a smaller battery that ought to take much less time to cost up, in a head-to-head check, which may be a good combat.
And that is precisely what InsideEVs Contributing Editor and State of Cost YouTube channel host Tom Moloughney did lately. It is a showdown between America’s two fastest-charging EVs, and certainly a number of the fastest-charging automobiles, interval, save for the stuff made by China’s BYD and the remaining. “If there was such a factor as an EV charging drag race, at this time’s video could be it,” Tom mentioned.
The typical session at a DC public fast-charger in America was round 42 minutes in 2024, based on the U.S. Division of Vitality. However real-world outcomes clearly depends upon any variety of elements: the person automotive’s battery measurement, its beginning cost degree, the pace of the charger itself, the climate outdoors and so forth. Many EVs boast a lot faster charging occasions; my very own Kia EV6 can usually cost from about 10% to 80% on a 350-kilowatt charger, for instance. After which we get into every automotive’s charging curvea flowery time period for the way lengthy it may well maintain its most pace whereas charging.
So for those who connected a Taycan and a Gravity to a 350 kW station—on this case, the identical EVGo charger—below the identical situations, and each began from 0%, how would they do?
Photograph by: YouTube
Effectively, in Tom’s check, the Gravity begins pulling 350 kW speeds virtually instantly, whereas the Taycan wants a minute to get going. After 5 minutes, the Taycan has the next cost degree on the battery, as a result of that battery is smaller. The Gravity continues to be seeing extra vitality disbursed extra shortly—30 kWh to the Taycan’s 23 kWh—and at increased charging speeds. At 10 minutes in, the Taycan is at 48% and speeds of 311 kW, whereas the Gravity is at 42% and 277 kW. Nonetheless, the charger has disbursed extra vitality to the Lucid than the Porsche.
Fifteen minutes in, there’s solely a 2 kWh distinction within the quantity of vitality disbursed into the automobiles. However the Taycan is at virtually 70% whereas the Gravity is at 55%. By 19 minutes in, the Taycan reaches that splendid 80% state of cost for highway journeys—it is not often advisable to go all the best way to 100% on a public DC fast-charger, however Tom does it right here—and the Gravity is at 64%. But the Gravity is pulling sooner charging speeds, nonetheless. The Gravity later hits 80% in 27 minutes.
However 80% cost on the Taycan means fewer driving miles than 80% cost on the Gravity. Extra on that in a bit.
Photograph by: YouTube
Looks like the Taycan is the winner, proper? Not so quick. “The Gravity’s charger has disbursed 10 extra kilowatt hours, and that alone can account for 40 to 50 miles of driving vary with Gravity, and that needs to be thought-about,” Tom mentioned. Finally, the Porsche hits 100% after 53 minutes, as a result of the remaining 20% after 80% takes approach longer. And the Lucid will get to 100% full after 74 minutes.
Any EV veteran will inform you it is that whatever-low-number-to-80% stat that actually issues, particularly for 2 luxurious automobiles with greater batteries like these two. And each get that completed in below a half an hour from completely empty. “If something about electrical automobile charging, you had been impressed by that,” Tom mentioned. These two autos can add the kilowatt-hours like nothing else I’ve ever recorded. They’re charging beasts and, for positive, are the 2 quickest charging electrical autos you should purchase right here in North America at the moment.”
Photograph by: YouTube
However ultimately, Tom notes that the Gravity was type of handicapped right here. It was working off a 350 kW charger when it may well do as much as 400 kW. There simply aren’t many 400 kW chargers on the market but, and of the extensively obtainable choices, 350 kW is just about nearly as good as you get. It is a query of what the Gravity’s true potential is, Tom mentioned. The remainder of the check assesses this from knowledge from one other charging check the place the Gravity was in a position to make use of a 400 kW charger.
And whenever you have a look at how lengthy it takes so as to add precise miles of driving vary—not only a battery share quantity—the Gravity is the clear winner.
Porsche Taycan vs. Lucid Air
Photograph by: YouTube
Tom thinks, as I do, that it is solely a matter of time earlier than the five-minute charging EVs seen in China and the know-how behind them come stateside. Till we do, and till something reveals as much as beat it, the Lucid Gravity appears to be America’s fast-charging champion.
Contact the writer: patrick.george@insideevs.com
