I wonder if Gil Tal has ever used an EV as their daily vehicle.
I have had two EVs in the last three years - a Kona and an IONIQ 5. I have greatly enjoyed them both. But one thing was a downside that I just had to accept: poor charging.
Granted, I live in the Canadian Prairies full of small towns a fair distance apart. And it's not exactly progressive - I'm actually being taxed for owning an EV. The charging infrastructure is sparse with 50-100kW charges every 100km. On long distance trips I spend 1 hour charging for every 2 hours driving. To say that faster charging wouldn't make a meaningful difference is simply wrong. Sure, it doesn't have to be 5 minutes - even 10-15 would be enough - but current chargers don't get anywhere close to that, even with 350kW, which rarely if ever reach those charging speeds.
For driving around the city I never bat an eye. I have a level 2 charger in my garage and there's one at work that is decently priced should I ever need it. I never use a fast charger for local travel. But long distance travel is what people are worried about and having much faster charging would most certainly make a difference for me and for them.
> Sure, it doesn't have to be 5 minutes - even 10-15 would be enough - but current chargers don't get anywhere close to that
My car has a 83 kWh battery and charges at 150 kW, which, for 20% to 80% (what you want to generally do on a trip) means 20 minutes. 20 minutes of charge gets me 300 km, and I generally definitely want to stop for 20 minutes every 300 km or so.
I don't see how that's not "anywhere close" to 15.
I don't think RevEng was saying it is impossible to do technically. I believe they were saying the charging infrastructure near their home makes it impossible to do practically as the chargers are often limited to 50-100kW. Aging Wheels did a video about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouPiwt5hxXQ
> On long distance trips I spend 1 hour charging for every 2 hours driving
In Spain, I take ~600km trips every once in a while. I just need to charge once in the middle of the trip, in a super-charger that is. And the charge is 25min maximum.
Your experience varies is basically opposite from my experience. Your situation is probably influenced, indeed, by the poor choice of EVs you purchased (range is the most important factor for me to buy) and the lack of superchargers around your area.
If an Ioniq 5 is a poor choice, I would love to know what a good choice is. Its energy usage is comparable to the vast majority of SUVs and it can charge at up to 227kW. The lack of good fast charger is certainly a difference compared to many areas.
Only the Long Range version of the Ioniq5 has decent range IMO. And BTW, the fact that it's an SUV is precisely a downside about it; smaller cars would have obviously more efficiency.
Faster charging improves things in more EV-friendly areas as well.
I live in Southern California, and if I take a trip on the weekend that is more than the 240mi. freeway range my Kona gets, I'm never worried about being stranded, but I have waited in line for an hour to charge; sub-10 minute charging would cut wait times too, and is probably necessary if the US both wants to electrify its transportation and still have people take road-trips on major holidays.
I have also had two EVs and what you are saying does not resonate.
I may be in warmer weather but I would say I probably charge 15 minutes to go 250 km or more. Given that the family also wants to stop to eat, go to the bathroom, or just get out for a bit, it mostly feels like we are stopping when we want to and not for much longer. Typically, stretches of driving are longer than 250 km. We can go over 400 km at a time (but rarely do).
To be fair though, we have great charging infrastructure. There is going to be fast charging in the next town pretty reliably.
At home, day to day, we charge at home and the car is basically magic. You drive as much as you like every day and never think about “fuel” at all. The thing just works. Going back to the non-EV SUV is daily “range anxiety” as it always seems like I am late for something and wondering if I have enough fuel to make it without having to stop.
Don’t get me wrong. Faster charging would be great and I am not saying we have never wanted to leave 10 minutes sooner from a charging station. But I have not found it anywhere near as bad as you are saying, even now.
In remote areas, sudden load from fast chargers can cause a bit of trouble with the rest of the local grid. It may be that those rest stops can't yet support a fast charger without upgrading their transformers.
Several people have said that they get much more range and charge much faster. I'm quite interested to know what your situation is: what is the efficiency of your vehicle in kWh/100km or Wh/km? At what rate are you able to charge with nearby chargers? How dense is the population of chargers in your area?
I'm aware that my situation is far from ideal, maybe even far from normal - I have no way to know. What I do know is that this is common for all of Canada outside of the major cities, and to the best of my knowledge is common for much of the USA too. This is a huge market to be left out if this is the EV experience for them. It's not sufficient if EVs only work in specific areas that are densely populated and have ample infrastructure. It becomes a chicken-and-egg situation where nobody wants an EV because the infrastructure sucks, but nobody wants to invest in infrastructure because there aren't many EVs to have as customers.
Here are the numbers for my 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5. It has a 77kWh battery, though only nominally - only 68kWh is actually usable. On long trips I will charge up to 90% and drive down to 20%, so that leaves me with 70% of the available capacity for use, or 47.6kWh. On the highway going 100-110km/h I spend about 20kWh/100km during the summer, 25kWh/100km during the winter (it gets down to -30C and you have to heat the cabin). That gives me about 240km range in the summer, 190km range in the winter. Since chargers are few and far between around here I usually have to stop every 100-150km to charge - chargers are typically that far apart on the highway.
At most my vehicle can charge up to 227kW. If I could get that consistently I would charge in 12.6 minutes. In practice I don't get anywhere near that. As I stated before, most chargers are 50-100kW in my area. There are some as high as 175kW, but they are in remote areas where chargers were only installed recently; all of the chargers along the main highways are older infrastructure that has been around for a few years and they are only 50kW. Thankfully, I actually get a consistent 50kW from those regardless of charge and temperature. That takes almost exactly an hour to charge. Going 100km/h with a range of ~200km that puts me at 1 hour of charging every 2 hours of driving.
Since the Tesla Supercharger network has opened up to non-Tesla vehicles, things have gotten a bit better, but only modestly. Despite the Superchargers being rated for 250kW, they run at 400V where my vehicle is on an 800V architecture. As a result I can only pull ~97kW from a Supercharger. This reduces the charging time to 30 minutes, which is manageable, but still a noticeable inconvenience. On an 8 hour drive this adds up to 2 hours of charging time, extending an 8 hour trip to 10 hours. I think you'll agree that's a significant increase.
In a nearby major city they did recently install 350kW chargers so I tried those out. Unfortunately, I happened to be travelling there on a cold winter day. I struggled to get up to 180kW, spending most of the time around 120kW. The battery preconditioning on this vehicle leaves much to be desired and it won't even turn on until you are within 50km of a stop on the nav (no manual override), despite it taking well over 30 minutes to get the battery up to temperature. The charging rate is severely limited below 0C and doesn't come up to full until about 20C. 20C is the high on a typical summer day around here; spring and autumn hover around 10C-15C. This means you only get full charging speeds in ideal conditions; anything else is noticeably worse.
For efficiency, my experienced 20kWh/100km of pure highway driving seems to be around average. EV-database.org lists the average WLTP (a blend of city and highway driving) as 190Wh/km, or 19kWh/100km. The Ioniq 5 AWD is listed at 180Wh/km, which is similar to my experience when combining both city and highway. The best are the Tesla Model 3 RWD at 130-140Wh/km which is quite impressive. Other small coupes have numbers about that around 150-160. The Ford Mach-e AWD is also common around here and comes out to 202Wh/100km, so notably higher. So other than comparing it to the most efficient RWD sedan, comparing it to other AWD SUVs it is quite normal. Around here, most people drive AWD SUVs or trucks because winter can be nasty. (You can drive FWD sedans - I did for 20 years - but most people get AWD SUVs or trucks if they can afford it because it's much better.)
So this is my experience. I hope it explains why I say that charging still needs to improve in many ways. Different vehicles will have different efficiency. Different areas will have different weather and availability of chargers. Both seem to be getting steadily better with time. But outside of ideal conditions, charging is still a serious downside for many people and it is a blocker to adoption to many. Even at my office several people have recently purchased EVs but had to swallow the pill that long trips were going to suck. Until consistently good efficiency and fast charging become widespread, EVs will remain a niche in many areas where the downsides are simply too great.
The fundamental problem of high-wattage charges (say 500kW), isn't to deliver power from the charger to the car, but that there needs to be crazy amounts of grid capacity to support them.
A house has like 10kW peak sustained power consumption (an apt even less), which it rarely reaches, so a park of these fast chargers need the same infrastructure as a small town.
These loads are so huge
Cities like Beijing have strong industry and in general have the infrastructure to it, so it's relatively straightforward to install chargers like these. If you go out into the countryside, this infrastructure disappears, and won't see these fast chargers.
Most European cities barely have enough capacity to cover urban expansion, never mind to support this.
These articles suggest, its just a matter of putting down these stations, and that would solve the charger problem, but in truth, there's often a prerequisite of huge grid upgrades somebody has to build and pay for, which come with the unpleasant sight of these high voltage lines intruding into neighborhoods.
I wished articles lambasting the lack of fast chargers also mentioned this as well.
Gas pumps in the US are artificially capped at 10 gallons per minute, and a gallon of gasoline is about 33kWh, so petrol cars in the US “charge” at 330kWh/min ~= 20MW. But most cars only turn about a third of that into motion, so let’s say 7MW equivalent? While BYD’s 1.5MW is amazing, it seems a stretch to call it “almost as fast as gas pumps.”
Diesel pumps for trucks typically pump much faster too. And diesel is nearer 40kWh/gal. We have a ways to go!
(The energy density of oil is amazing: a fully loaded A380 with 84,500 us gallons of jet fuel at 37.5 kWh per, that’s over 3TWh. Which is about twice the capacity of all the li-ion batteries made in 2025. We have a ways to go!)
>Just taking an existing fast charger with 150- or 350-kW capacity and swapping in the latest and greatest 1,500-kW chargers wouldn’t get anyone faster speeds. The system would need all new “pipes”—grid capacity—to actually move that much current.
The grid doesn't necessarily mean "pipes" or power lines. You don't build a pipeline to every gas station. Mobile charging robots work pretty well in China.
I have a feeling that half the reason they're doing this is that they don't have a good idea how to increase energy efficiency.
Case in point:
2026 BMW i3 - 900km WLTP from a 108kWh battery.
2026 Denza Z9 GT - 800km WLTP from a 122kWh pack.
The former charges at a maximum of 400kW, while the latter at over twice that which saves... about 10 minutes at the charger after 450km of driving(12 vs 22 minutes approx).
Many such examples with Chinese manufacturers putting 700kg battery packs into the vehicles just to be able to say it's this and that kWh.
I don't know about anyone here but after 400km or so I'm done and want to at least stretch my legs.
We need grid scale batteries anyways to capture excess solar (curtailment) at zero cost, or for a profit. Put these in distributed locations that can also charge cars and we solve 2 problems at once.
275 comments
I have had two EVs in the last three years - a Kona and an IONIQ 5. I have greatly enjoyed them both. But one thing was a downside that I just had to accept: poor charging.
Granted, I live in the Canadian Prairies full of small towns a fair distance apart. And it's not exactly progressive - I'm actually being taxed for owning an EV. The charging infrastructure is sparse with 50-100kW charges every 100km. On long distance trips I spend 1 hour charging for every 2 hours driving. To say that faster charging wouldn't make a meaningful difference is simply wrong. Sure, it doesn't have to be 5 minutes - even 10-15 would be enough - but current chargers don't get anywhere close to that, even with 350kW, which rarely if ever reach those charging speeds.
For driving around the city I never bat an eye. I have a level 2 charger in my garage and there's one at work that is decently priced should I ever need it. I never use a fast charger for local travel. But long distance travel is what people are worried about and having much faster charging would most certainly make a difference for me and for them.
> Sure, it doesn't have to be 5 minutes - even 10-15 would be enough - but current chargers don't get anywhere close to that
My car has a 83 kWh battery and charges at 150 kW, which, for 20% to 80% (what you want to generally do on a trip) means 20 minutes. 20 minutes of charge gets me 300 km, and I generally definitely want to stop for 20 minutes every 300 km or so.
I don't see how that's not "anywhere close" to 15.
> On long distance trips I spend 1 hour charging for every 2 hours driving
In Spain, I take ~600km trips every once in a while. I just need to charge once in the middle of the trip, in a super-charger that is. And the charge is 25min maximum.
Your experience varies is basically opposite from my experience. Your situation is probably influenced, indeed, by the poor choice of EVs you purchased (range is the most important factor for me to buy) and the lack of superchargers around your area.
I live in Southern California, and if I take a trip on the weekend that is more than the 240mi. freeway range my Kona gets, I'm never worried about being stranded, but I have waited in line for an hour to charge; sub-10 minute charging would cut wait times too, and is probably necessary if the US both wants to electrify its transportation and still have people take road-trips on major holidays.
I may be in warmer weather but I would say I probably charge 15 minutes to go 250 km or more. Given that the family also wants to stop to eat, go to the bathroom, or just get out for a bit, it mostly feels like we are stopping when we want to and not for much longer. Typically, stretches of driving are longer than 250 km. We can go over 400 km at a time (but rarely do).
To be fair though, we have great charging infrastructure. There is going to be fast charging in the next town pretty reliably.
At home, day to day, we charge at home and the car is basically magic. You drive as much as you like every day and never think about “fuel” at all. The thing just works. Going back to the non-EV SUV is daily “range anxiety” as it always seems like I am late for something and wondering if I have enough fuel to make it without having to stop.
Don’t get me wrong. Faster charging would be great and I am not saying we have never wanted to leave 10 minutes sooner from a charging station. But I have not found it anywhere near as bad as you are saying, even now.
> I'm actually being taxed for owning an EV.
I'm aware that my situation is far from ideal, maybe even far from normal - I have no way to know. What I do know is that this is common for all of Canada outside of the major cities, and to the best of my knowledge is common for much of the USA too. This is a huge market to be left out if this is the EV experience for them. It's not sufficient if EVs only work in specific areas that are densely populated and have ample infrastructure. It becomes a chicken-and-egg situation where nobody wants an EV because the infrastructure sucks, but nobody wants to invest in infrastructure because there aren't many EVs to have as customers.
Here are the numbers for my 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5. It has a 77kWh battery, though only nominally - only 68kWh is actually usable. On long trips I will charge up to 90% and drive down to 20%, so that leaves me with 70% of the available capacity for use, or 47.6kWh. On the highway going 100-110km/h I spend about 20kWh/100km during the summer, 25kWh/100km during the winter (it gets down to -30C and you have to heat the cabin). That gives me about 240km range in the summer, 190km range in the winter. Since chargers are few and far between around here I usually have to stop every 100-150km to charge - chargers are typically that far apart on the highway.
At most my vehicle can charge up to 227kW. If I could get that consistently I would charge in 12.6 minutes. In practice I don't get anywhere near that. As I stated before, most chargers are 50-100kW in my area. There are some as high as 175kW, but they are in remote areas where chargers were only installed recently; all of the chargers along the main highways are older infrastructure that has been around for a few years and they are only 50kW. Thankfully, I actually get a consistent 50kW from those regardless of charge and temperature. That takes almost exactly an hour to charge. Going 100km/h with a range of ~200km that puts me at 1 hour of charging every 2 hours of driving.
Since the Tesla Supercharger network has opened up to non-Tesla vehicles, things have gotten a bit better, but only modestly. Despite the Superchargers being rated for 250kW, they run at 400V where my vehicle is on an 800V architecture. As a result I can only pull ~97kW from a Supercharger. This reduces the charging time to 30 minutes, which is manageable, but still a noticeable inconvenience. On an 8 hour drive this adds up to 2 hours of charging time, extending an 8 hour trip to 10 hours. I think you'll agree that's a significant increase.
In a nearby major city they did recently install 350kW chargers so I tried those out. Unfortunately, I happened to be travelling there on a cold winter day. I struggled to get up to 180kW, spending most of the time around 120kW. The battery preconditioning on this vehicle leaves much to be desired and it won't even turn on until you are within 50km of a stop on the nav (no manual override), despite it taking well over 30 minutes to get the battery up to temperature. The charging rate is severely limited below 0C and doesn't come up to full until about 20C. 20C is the high on a typical summer day around here; spring and autumn hover around 10C-15C. This means you only get full charging speeds in ideal conditions; anything else is noticeably worse.
For efficiency, my experienced 20kWh/100km of pure highway driving seems to be around average. EV-database.org lists the average WLTP (a blend of city and highway driving) as 190Wh/km, or 19kWh/100km. The Ioniq 5 AWD is listed at 180Wh/km, which is similar to my experience when combining both city and highway. The best are the Tesla Model 3 RWD at 130-140Wh/km which is quite impressive. Other small coupes have numbers about that around 150-160. The Ford Mach-e AWD is also common around here and comes out to 202Wh/100km, so notably higher. So other than comparing it to the most efficient RWD sedan, comparing it to other AWD SUVs it is quite normal. Around here, most people drive AWD SUVs or trucks because winter can be nasty. (You can drive FWD sedans - I did for 20 years - but most people get AWD SUVs or trucks if they can afford it because it's much better.)
So this is my experience. I hope it explains why I say that charging still needs to improve in many ways. Different vehicles will have different efficiency. Different areas will have different weather and availability of chargers. Both seem to be getting steadily better with time. But outside of ideal conditions, charging is still a serious downside for many people and it is a blocker to adoption to many. Even at my office several people have recently purchased EVs but had to swallow the pill that long trips were going to suck. Until consistently good efficiency and fast charging become widespread, EVs will remain a niche in many areas where the downsides are simply too great.
A house has like 10kW peak sustained power consumption (an apt even less), which it rarely reaches, so a park of these fast chargers need the same infrastructure as a small town.
These loads are so huge
Cities like Beijing have strong industry and in general have the infrastructure to it, so it's relatively straightforward to install chargers like these. If you go out into the countryside, this infrastructure disappears, and won't see these fast chargers.
Most European cities barely have enough capacity to cover urban expansion, never mind to support this.
These articles suggest, its just a matter of putting down these stations, and that would solve the charger problem, but in truth, there's often a prerequisite of huge grid upgrades somebody has to build and pay for, which come with the unpleasant sight of these high voltage lines intruding into neighborhoods.
I wished articles lambasting the lack of fast chargers also mentioned this as well.
Diesel pumps for trucks typically pump much faster too. And diesel is nearer 40kWh/gal. We have a ways to go!
(The energy density of oil is amazing: a fully loaded A380 with 84,500 us gallons of jet fuel at 37.5 kWh per, that’s over 3TWh. Which is about twice the capacity of all the li-ion batteries made in 2025. We have a ways to go!)
[0] https://www.techradar.com/vehicle-tech/hybrid-electric-vehic...
The grid doesn't necessarily mean "pipes" or power lines. You don't build a pipeline to every gas station. Mobile charging robots work pretty well in China.
Case in point:
2026 BMW i3 - 900km WLTP from a 108kWh battery.
2026 Denza Z9 GT - 800km WLTP from a 122kWh pack.
The former charges at a maximum of 400kW, while the latter at over twice that which saves... about 10 minutes at the charger after 450km of driving(12 vs 22 minutes approx).
Many such examples with Chinese manufacturers putting 700kg battery packs into the vehicles just to be able to say it's this and that kWh.
I don't know about anyone here but after 400km or so I'm done and want to at least stretch my legs.