The Tesla Cybertruck is in the 800V club of EVs, meaning that its battery pack can theoretically accept higher charging speeds as long as the charger is capable of providing such a high voltage.
Hyundai Motor Group’s E-GMP-based cars like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and the Kia EV6 are in the same club, but the problem is that there aren’t a lot of DC fast chargers out there that are rated at 800V. Instead, the majority get up to 400V, which means these cars’ maximum charging speeds are practically cut in half.
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The Cybertruck flexes its charging muscles
The Cybertruck is Tesla’s first EV to make use of an 800-volt battery system, which can accept higher charging speeds compared to 400V vehicles like the Model Y. Until now, the highest charging rate achieved was 253 kilowatts, but Nxu’s third-party 800V charger sent a peak rate of 327 kW to the Cybertruck.
In the case of the Cybertruck, we discovered that the unit we reviewed peaked at 206 kilowatts when connected to a V3, 250-kW Supercharger and then tapered off to around 150 kW. At the end of the 11-to-80% charge, the truck had an average charging rate of 118 kW and the top-up took 45 minutes.
But Tesla’s pickup can do better. In a video from Out of Spec Reviews, the angular EV got up to 253 kW from a 400V charger, and now we’ve learned that the stainless steel truck can even go above 300 kW, albeit for a short amount of time.
When connected to Nxu’s third-party 800V Charging Station, the Cybertruck achieved a peak charging rate of 327 kW at 814V and a peak current of 462 amps. As you can see from the charging chart below (via Teslarati), the Cybertruck maintained the peak charging rate between roughly 2 to 5% state of charge, after which it started to taper. At 10% SoC, it was drawing around 200 kW, at 20% SoC it was at around 120 kW, and then it was relatively steady at about 80-100 kW until it got to 50% SoC. The average charging rate was not disclosed.
A full charge took an hour and 16 minutes, according to the chart, and Nxu said that the peak rate of 327 kW was achieved with multiple Cybertruck units during several charging sessions. The company also says that its Charging System is the industry’s only universal, dual-technology solution for public charging, featuring both NACS and CCS cables. Last month, Nxu demonstrated that its charging system can provide power to the Cybertruck using its native NACS port.
In the case of Tesla’s Supercharger network, the vast majority of stalls are currently rated at 400V and 250 kW, but the latest version, V4, is capable of providing up to 1,000V and 615A, resulting in a maximum output of 615 kW in the future.
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