How long will it take to charge my car?

There are a number of things that can affect how long it takes to fully charge your EV. The charge point directly affects the rate at which your car charges as it will have a maximum charge rate. The time it takes to charge is also affected by car battery size, battery state of charge, and environment (such as how cold it is outside). This might all be new to you, but we’ll explain a little bit more about how these factors impact how long it takes to fill your battery.

1. Battery Size: Some cars have larger batteries than others, and these will take longer to fully charge. If you have a plug-in hybrid with a smaller battery, you’ll notice this take much less time to full charge than a fully electric car. 
2. Maximum charge rate of vehicle: Your EV will have a maximum charge rate which effects how quickly the battery can accept charge. If your car has a maximum charge rate of 7kWh, this means it’ll only be able to consume 7 kilowatts of energy every hour. You can use your car’s maximum charge rate and battery size to work out how long it may take to fully charge. 
3. Maximum charge rate of charge point: Each charge point has a maximum charge rate, which may differ from the max charge rate of your car. Your car may have a maximum charge rate of 7kWh, but you’ll notice the car charges much more slowly when plugged into a 3-pin charger with a max charge rate of 2.4kWh. 
4. Temperature: Colder temperatures can cause longer charging times, but you’ll probably only notice this when rapid charging. A cold battery will take a little longer to ramp up to 200kWh, but shouldn’t have any trouble charging at 7kWh in colder weather. 
5. State of battery: The closer your battery is to empty, the longer it will take to charge. Make sure you allow plenty of time to charge if your battery is particularly low. 

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