Testing the quickest charging EVs on sale

Whenever we get an EV in for review here at Destination Charged, we typically spend a week living with the car the same way you’d live with the car. We go get groceries. We drive to the office. We load stuff up in it. We want to emulate what ownership will be like for you when you purchase the vehicle.

Another thing we do is our 70 MPH highway range test. That test, which we video and publish on our YouTube channel, simulates a real-world, worst-case scenario for an EV. That scenario is a long, flat, highway drive. When we’re done, we hook that EV up to a fast charger and check the manufacturer’s claims on charging performance.

We watch for what the peak DCFC rate is, and we also chart out the entire charging curve. We also break out the 10% to 80% charging time, which we think is the most accurate reflection of how a normal user would recharge the car on a road trip. They’d drive until there’s roughly 10% left in the battery (heck, many people don’t let their gasoline-powered cars drop below a quarter of a tank), and then charge to 80% state of charge, where the charging speed tends to drop.

Some automakers will quote a 15% to 80%. Others will do a 20% to 80%. We’ve even seen a 5% to 80%. But the volume of manufacturers makes charging claims around starting at a 10% state of charge.

Like I said, we map the entire curve from nearly empty to fully charged, but we do break out that important metric. We also take those numbers and put them on our leaderboard, which is a place for you to see which EVs recharge the quickest. We also provide some other useful metrics, like the amount of EPA-rated range that is added as a result of you adding 70% of charge to the battery, plus we do an average miles per minute number. That last number is an average and can vary wildly depending on conditions, but we include it for comparing two vehicles on the chart side by side.

Anyway, you can check out the most updated version of the leaderboard by clicking here. But as of publication, these are the 5 quickest charging EVs that we’ve tested so far from 10% to 80% state of charge.

• 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5 Limited: 18 minutes, 179 miles added, 9.9 miles per minute
• 2023 Genesis GV60 Performance: 23 minutes, 169 miles added, 7.3 miles per minute
• 2024 Kia EV9 GT-Line: 26 minutes, 192 miles added, 7.4 miles per minute
• 2024 Mercedes-Benz EQE SUV 350+: 30 minutes, 218 miles added, 7.3 miles per minute
• 2024 Fiat 500e: 34 minutes, 100 miles added, 2.9 miles per minute

As you can see, the 800-volt Hyundai is a speed demon when recharging on a compatible charger. The other Hyundai Motor Group vehicles are also 800-volt, but due to battery size and other changes, the timing is different. When you look at miles per minute added when connected to a charger, they are nearly identical to the Mercedes-Benz EQE, making that vehicle not significantly different in the real world.

Like I said, that last metric is only useful when comparing vehicles in our specific test with other vehicles that we’ve specifically tested, but we do include it for that purpose.

As we test more vehicles, we’ll update our leaderboard, so be sure to bookmark that page. We’ll also update this page if any significant changes are made, but the leaderboard will have the most accurate, up-to-date results that we have.