How long does it take to charge an electric car?

Everyone’s talking about electric cars, but how practical are they? For example, how long do they take to charge? In this article, we’ll try to answer that question.

What Is An Electric Car?

Most cars run on fossil fuels like gas. Over the decades, scientists worldwide have found that burning these fossil fuels and releasing the carbon byproducts into the air has had some unintentional consequences. Primarily that excess carbon gets caught in the Earth’s atmosphere, making it harder for the sun’s heat to leave once it has entered.

Electric cars don’t run on fossil fuels. Instead, they simply run on electricity. You plug them in to charge, and that’s it. And if you charge your EV using clean power from solar, there are no carbon-related byproducts released by cars running on electricity. This leads to better air quality with less carbon in the air. The less carbon there is in the air, the more our planet can clean itself and get rid of what we’ve already put up there.

How Long Does it Take to Charge an Electric Car?

So the benefits of driving an electric car sound pretty great. But is driving electric practical? For example, regular gas engine cars only take a few minutes to fuel up, and gas stations are everywhere.

What about electric cars? How long does it take to charge an electric car? The answer, like with most everything, is, “It depends.”

Electric cars come in different sizes. The same goes for the batteries that they are built with. These batteries can hold different quantities of electricity just like the gas tanks on two different car models.

There’s no way to give a direct answer for how long it’ll take to charge an all-electric car because all car models are different. That being said, we can help you figure it out for the specific car you’re looking at.

Here are some steps to figure out how long it will take to charge an electric car.

1. Know how many kilowatt-hours your car battery can hold

If you’re buying a gas-powered car, you know that its tank size is measured in gallons. Some cars have large tanks. Some cars have small tanks. It just depends on the model.

Electric cars do not measure their fuel in terms of gallons. Instead, they measure the size of their “tanks” in terms of kilowatt-hours. Knowing how many kilowatt-hours your car can hold when fully charged is step #1.

2. Know the strength of your available power supply

You can only charge a battery as fast as you can get electricity through your charging cable, and that cable’s charging ability will change depending on the “level” of the charger you’re using and the capacity of its electrical supply. Using a Level 2 charging station with a 240-volt connection will charge your EV at a faster rate than a Level 1 charger plugged into a standard household outlet. You might be able to use a Level 2 charging station at a gas station or office building, but you can also get the ChargePoint Home EV Charger installed at your house, which can charge your car 6 times faster than the standard home outlet.

Installing a Level 2 charger at home requires a dedicated circuit in your electrical panel that is wired by a certified electrician, similar to an electric dryer. That means charging your EV will take less time, but you also won’t have to worry about overloading an electrical circuit by plugging a Level 1 charger into an outlet has other high loads like from a space heater. That could cause your circuit breaker to shut off and drop your EV charging rate to zero!

Find out how many kilowatt-hours the charger you’re using produces in a certain amount of time. You should be able to find this information pretty quickly by looking at the charging station. This is step #2.

3. Do the math

From there, it’s just a matter of math. Figure out how much your battery needs to charge and divide that amount by the speed of your charging station. That’ll give you the estimated amount of time it will take for your car to finish charging.

Vivint Solar Can Help You Charge Your Electric Car

Your home can only handle so much electricity on its own. And if you’re fully dependent on the grid, the cost for that electricity will vary widely depending on the month, day, and hour you use it. This is why it can cost a lot to charge your electric car.

But with solar energy, you can get your electricity at a lower rate than you will from the grid.

Vivint Solar can help you figure out whether or not it would be financially beneficial to install solar panels onto your home. If it is, we’ll help you through the entire process so you don’t even have to think about it. Once your panels are installed, you can start charging your electric car with clean energy. We’ll even help you get an EV charging station as well if you’d like.

Contact one of our reps to learn more today!