First seen Cybertruck charging curve disappoints, but is that the whole story?
The Tesla Cybertruck, Tesla’s first vehicle to fully utilize its larger 4680-format cell, has been out for about a month now. But with only limited quantities on the road in the public’s hands, there have still been a lot of questions about the vehicle.
Now we’ve got an answer to one of the most important questions: charge rate. It’s not great – but that might not be the whole story.
Peak charging speed, measured in kilowatts or kW, is one of the most important stats on an EV – arguably much more important than range. The higher the charge rate the quicker you can get back on the road during a charging session. Older EVs have DC charge rates around 50kW, which is quite slow compared to today’s standards, where EVs are usually capable of 150kW+, with some models capable of up to 350kW. Tesla’s V3 superchargers can deliver up to 250kW of power, which is plenty fast, though the new V4s are even faster at 350kW.
But another important aspect of charging is charge curve, or how quickly a vehicle “tapers” off of the peak charge rate to a lower one. EVs can’t sustain peak charge rates forever, so will usually only hold on to the peak rate for a certain period of time before lowering to a slower rate. This is why EVs usually state their DC charge time “to 80%,” because charging past 80% at a high rate is generally bad for battery durability.
Until now, this was an open question for the Cybertruck, especially since it is Tesla’s first car to fully utilize the 4680-format cells which have been noted to have somewhat worse charging performance than the previous 2170 format cells.
Video of Cybertruck’s charging curve
But in a video posted by Our Cyber Life, a new youtube channel formed by a couple who took delivery of their Cybertruck two weeks ago, we now know what the Cybertruck’s charge curve looks like. The channel’s videos so far have fully focused on the Cybertruck ownership experience, from a couple who have never owned a Tesla before (but one of them, nevertheless, seems to be a Tesla employee – which explains the early Cybertruck delivery).
The video fully documents a Cybertruck charge at the Tesla supercharger in Mesa, Arizona, a V3 Supercharger capable of 250kW peak power delivery. Most of the video is just a 5x speed timelapse of the screen during the charging session, though Our Cyber Life helpfully included graphs showing charge rate for those who are “not interested in watching paint dry.”
As we can see in the video and accompanying graphs, the Cybertruck seems to have a relatively poor charge curve, at least for this charging session at a busy V3 Supercharger. The car starts at 14% state of charge, after about 20 minutes of preconditioning (an automatic process to raise battery temperature to accept higher charge rates).
It immediately jumps to a peak charge rate of 255kW, but starts to taper quite rapidly, with charge rate gradually decreasing starting at 20% SOC. By 40% SOC the car is down to 150kW, 100kW at 60% SOC, and reaches a plateau of 75-80kW at about 66% SOC, which it holds until around 90% – when the Youtuber’s camera died and the Cybertruck headed out.
All in all, it was a 50 minute charge session from 14-90%, adding 94kWh worth of energy into the Cybertruck’s 123kWh battery. Or, using the standard 80% cutoff, 14-80% took 40 minutes.
Brief comparison with other vehicles
Tesla vehicles do tend to taper rather early, but make up for it with high peak charge rates. It’s usually better to do more frequent, shorter charge sessions to take advantage of higher charge rates at low SOC, rather than to charge all the way up to 90 or 100%. Plus, busy Superchargers will penalize you for sticking around too long while others are waiting for a charge.
This is still a reasonably quick charge rate, especially when compared to the early days of EV charging or compared to AC charge times which run in the hours, not minutes.
But given the Cybertruck’s huge 123kWh battery, we expected quicker charging than this. A larger battery can usually sustain a higher charge rate for longer (this concept is known as “C-rate,” or charge rate divided by total capacity). A Model 3 Long Range has a peak C-rate of 3 and average C-rate of 1.4 when charging from 0-100%, but in this test, the Cybertruck showed a peak C-rate of just over 2 and average of about .9.
Measured in “miles of charge added per minute,” which is an even more important metric for practical driving purposes, the picture gets somewhat worse for the Cybertruck. The Model 3 is rated at 333 miles of range, and from 14-80% can add about 220 miles of range in 31 minutes. By the same metric, from 14-80%, the Cybertruck added 206 miles in 40 minutes – less range in a longer period of time.
All of these are significantly slower than the current charging champions, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and its cousin the Kia EV6, which despite a slightly lower peak charge rate of around 230kW, have an impressively broad charging curve that can sustain speeds of 170-180kW all the way up to 70-80%.
And compared to a similar-ish vehicle, the Rivian R1T, the R1T tapers a little bit later, but not by a tremendous amount. The R1T wins here, but by a small margin (a margin which becomes larger when taking into account Rivian’s higher efficiency and Tesla’s traditional, uh, “optimistic” range estimates).
But that’s not the whole story
However, we need to caution that this is only one test in one set of circumstances – and the circumstances are less than ideal for the Cybertruck in question.
First, the Cybertruck’s charging system is built with the ability to switch between 800-volt and 400-volt charging. V3 Superchargers are 400V, so it’s possible that the Cybertruck will be able to charge better from an 800V charger – if Tesla gets around to installing them. The V4 Supercharger is supposed to be capable of 800V charging, but so far we’ve only seen 400V installs, showing how Tesla’s charging network isn’t ready for Cybertruck – and that’s true in more ways than one.
Second, it was a busy Supercharger, and on busy Superchargers sometimes Tesla limits charging speed. A Supercharger station won’t necessarily be built with the ability to give maximum 250kW power to every stall at the same time, because you’re rarely going to have every stall full with a car at 0% SOC calling for maximum charge rate. So a 10-stall, 250kW charger might have a total 1-1.5MW capacity, instead of the 2.5MW you’d expect from the nameplate 250kW charge rate. It is possible the Cybertruck was given max charge rate at low SOC, and then the station itself tapered off power delivery in order to prioritize lower-SOC vehicles at the station.
Finally, this is a brand-new vehicle and Tesla may be waiting for more data on battery health while charging, in order to potentially increase charge rates in the future. Tesla is fond of offering over-the-air updates to improve vehicle capabilities, and to allow early owners to act as beta testers. In this case, the owner in question is also a Tesla employee, and Tesla is even more willing to use employees as guinea pigs on new vehicles. So it’s entirely possible that charge rates might increase in a future software update – as happened with Rivian as well.
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National Grid Renewables has broken ground on its 100 MW Apple River Solar Project in Polk County, Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin solar farm, which will use US-made First Solar Series 6 Plus bifacial modules, will be constructed by The Boldt Company, creating 150 construction and service jobs. Apple River Solar will generate over $36 million in direct economic benefits over its first 20 years.
Once it comes online in late 2025, Apple River Solar will supply clean energy to Xcel Energy, which serves customers throughout the Upper Midwest. According to National Grid Renewables, the solar farm will generate enough energy to power around 26,000 homes annually. It will also offset about 129,900 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year – equivalent to taking 30,900 cars off the road.
“We are excited to see this project begin as it underscores our dedication to delivering clean, reliable and affordable energy to our customers,” said Karl Hoesly, President, Xcel Energy-Wisconsin and Michigan. “This project is an important step in those goals while bringing significant economic benefits to Polk County and the local townships.”
Electrek reported in February that Xcel Energy, Minnesota’s largest utility, expects to cut more than 80% – and possibly up to 88% – of its emissions by 2030, putting it on track to hit Minnesota’s goal of net zero by 2040. It also says it’s on track to achieve its clean energy goals for all the Upper Midwest states it serves – Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Michigan.
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Tesla has announced that it will finally deliver 500 kW charging as it is about to install its long-awaited V4 Supercharger cabinets.
The rollout of Supercharger V4 has been a strange one, to say the least.
Tesla has been deploying the new charging stations for two years and calling them “Supercharger V4”, but it has only been deploying the charging stalls.
Supercharger stations are made of two main parts: the stalls, which are where the charging cable is located, and the cabinets, which are generally located further back and include all the power electronics.
For all these new “Supercharger V4”, Tesla was actually using Supercharger V3 cabinets. This has been limiting the power output of the charging stations to 250 kW – although
Today, Tesla officially announced its “V4 Cabinet”, which the automaker claims will enable of “delivering up to 500kW for cars and 1.2MW for Semi.”
Here are the main features of the V4 Cabinet as per Tesla:
- Faster charging: Supports 400V-1000V vehicle architectures, including 30% faster charging for Cybertruck. S3XY vehicles enjoy 250kW charge rates they already experience on V3 Cabinet — charging up to 200 miles in 15 minutes.
- Faster deployments: V4 Cabinet powers 8 posts, 2X the stalls per cabinet. Lower footprint and complexity = more sites coming online faster.
- Next-generation hardware: Cutting-edge power electronics designed to be the most reliable on the planet, with 3X power density enabling higher throughput with lower costs.
Tesla reports that its first sites with the new V4 Cabinets are going into permitting now. The company expects its first sites to open next year.
We recently reported about Tesla’s new Oasis Supercharger project, which includes larger solar arrays and battery packs to operate the charging station mostly off-grid.
Early in the deployment of the Supercharger network, Tesla promised to add solar arrays and batteries to all Supercharger stations, and Musk even said that most stations would be able to operate off-grid.
While Tesla did add solar and batteries to a few stations, the vast majority of them don’t have their own power system or have only minimal solar canopies.
Back in 2016, I asked Musk about this, and he said that it would now happen as Tesla had the “pieces now in place” with Supercharger V3, Powerpack V2, and SolarCity:
It took about 8 years, but it sounds like the pieces are now getting actually in place with Supercharger V4, Megapacks, and this new Oasis project.
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Hyundai has a new secret weapon it’s about ready to unleash. To revamp the brand in China and counter BYD’s surge, Hyundai is launching a new AI-powered EV next year. The new model will be Hyundai’s first dedicated electric car for the world’s largest EV market.
With the help of Haomo, a Chinese autonomous startup, Hyundai will launch its first EV equipped with generative AI. It will also be its first model designed specifically for China.
A Hyundai Motor official said (via The Korea Herald) the company is “working to load the software” onto the new EV model, “which will be released in the Chinese market next year.” The spokesperson added, “The level of autonomous driving is somewhere between 2 and 2.5.”
In comparison, Tesla’s Autopilot is considered a level 2 advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) on the SAE scale (0 to 5), meaning it offers limited hands-free features.
With Autopilot, you still have to keep your eyes on the road and hands on the steering wheel, or the system will notify you and eventually disengage.
Haomo’s system, DriveGPT, unveiled last spring, takes inspiration from the OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT.
The system can continuously update in real-time to optimize decision-making by absorbing traffic data patterns. According to Haomo, DriveGPT is used in around 20 models as it looks to play a bigger role in China.
Hyundai hopes new AI-powered EV boosts sales in China
Electric vehicle sales continue surging in China. According to Rho Motion, China set another EV sales record last month with 1.2 million units sold, up 50% from October 2023.
Over 8.4 million EVs were sold in China in the first ten months of 2024, a notable 38% increase from last year.
BYD continues to dominate its home market. According to Autovista24, BYD accounted for 32.9% of all PHEV and EV (NEV) sales in China through September, with over half of the top 20 best-selling EV models.
Tesla was second with a 6.5% share of the market, but keep in mind these numbers only include plug-in models (PHEV).
Like most foreign automakers, Hyundai is struggling to keep up with the influx of low-cost electric models in China. Beijing Hyundai’s sales have been slipping since 2017. Through September, Korean automaker’s share of the Chinese market fell to just 1.2%.
Last month, Hyundai opened its first overseas digital R&D center in China to help kick off its return to the region.
According to local reports, Hyundai is partnering with other local tech companies like Thundersoft, a smart cockpit provider, and others in China to power up its next-gen EVs
With its first AI-powered EV launching next year, Hyundai hopes to turn things around in the region quickly. The new model will be one of five to launch in China through 2026.
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