Most non-EV drivers think charging takes forever. What they often forget is that electricity is everywhere, and you might do most of your charging at home or at work, where the EV can "fill up" while sitting all day or all night.
But what about the times when you need more than one charge in a day? That's when the timing really matters, and that's when EV drivers rely on DC fast charging, where a typical charge takes 15-60 minutes. These chargers require a lot more power, more than most drivers would want or need to use for home charging. Public charging networks, like EVgo, make it possible to align your daily activities with your charging needs — but it's important to understand that fast charging works very differently from charging at home.
This resource provides a basic breakdown between at-home and fast-charging to help you better understand what to expect. For a more detailed guide to the many factors that can impact the time it takes to charge your EV, especially when using a fast charger, check out our article: Guide to EV charging speed
About at-home charging
When you purchase your electric vehicle, you will be provided with an adapter to charge at home. Most at-home charging is known as Level 1 (or L1, with a standard wall plug) and Level 2 (or L2, requiring at least a 240v outlet and often professionally installed). The L1 and L2 chargers are by far the simplest to use; however, they take a significant amount of time to fully charge your vehicle (at least 4-5 hours for an L2 charger and up to 24 hours for L1).
L1 and L2 chargers are also generally the most gentle on your vehicle's battery. The slow and steady flow of electricity will never overwhelm your battery, regardless of its state at the time of charging (battery level, recent usage, even the weather can impact your battery).
The introduction of fast charging
The slow rate of charging is just fine when your vehicle is safely parked and charging overnight, but we all know that timing is not ideal when you're trying to keep yourself moving. This is why Level 3 (L3) fast chargers were introduced!
Fast chargers can provide significant miles of driving within a very short charge time, which makes them perfect for public charging locations like EVgo when you want to spend limited time throughout the day charging your EV. However, the significant increase in energy with L3 charging makes them much more complicated — for the chargers themselves and for your vehicle.
While EVgo handles any maintenance on our fast chargers, all electric vehicles on the market that can accept a fast charge have built-in precautions to protect the battery. Your vehicle always controls the amount of energy it will accept; you'll likely notice that it only accepts L2-equivalent energy (50kW or less) when the battery is under around 20% or over 60-80% charged, and it may accept less energy if you've been driving for 10 mins vs 2 hours before charging. Different factors impact charging speeds, all to protect your battery!
Learn more about what you can expect from a fast charger:
There's a lot to learn about charging your EV, especially when it comes to fast charging. You can find a more technical details from the EVgo charging crew in our article, Guide to EV charging speed.
If you're new to public EV charging, we also recommend reviewing our guide, Charging session expectations: Charging speed, session length, and more