Powering a Battery-Only Vehicle Is 23-Times Slower Than Powering a Hybrid -Why It Matters

Most current electric vehicle owners power up most of the time at home. However, as time passes, more and more apartment dwellers, condo owners, and multi-family residents will consider buying battery-only vehicles. For a majority of these vehicle shoppers, charging at home on a charger they own and control may never be an option. Studies have proven that public charging is a barrier to entry for these prospective battery-only vehicle consumers. 

Related Story: EV Reality: Quick Stops At Level 2 Public Electric Vehicle Chargers Are Worthless

Why Does It Matter How “Fast” EVs Can Charge In Public?
For a small minority of vehicle owners, driving a fully electric car is their first and overwhelming priority. For those people, no barrier will be too formidable. Regardless of the impositions, they will adapt and find a way to make the battery-only vehicle work for them. However, many other drivers want some semblance of the convenience they have come to expect and enjoy from using liquid fuels (gasoline-ethanol blends). 

Don’t take our word for it that the buying public cares about how fast (or how slowly) battery-only vehicles charge in public and that many see this as a barrier to buying a battery-only vehicle.

• A 2024 Transportation and Environment Study Concluded: “Charging time compared to refilling with petrol was a top concern for 9% of people and was a concern for a further 23%.”
• A 2024 McKinsey Survey Found that “...charging issues, including consumers’ lingering concerns about being able to charge as conveniently as they can fuel up today, could also slow the widespread adoption of EVs.”
• A 2024 EVConnect Analysis determined that “The speed at which a driver can charge up their vehicle is another topic brought up often by hesitant adopters.”
• An Inside EVs feature story from June of 2023 makes the case that “Charging Remains Biggest Hurdle To EV Adoption In The US.”
• A November 2023 Study by S&P Mobility Determined that “Charging concerns are second only to vehicle cost among reasons cited for those respondents against buying an EV.”

We decided to do a comparison to help explain the time differences between charging up a battery-only vehicle in public versus filling up a hybrid-electric vehicle with fuel. We will make our comparisons in miles of range added per minute and show our math. 

Filling Up A Hybrid-Electric Crossover - Time 2 Minutes - Range Added 525 Miles 
Our first test was using the pump at The Country Mile station on the border of Mass in Greenville, New Hampshire. We drove a 2024 Toyota Venza hybrid until it was bingo fuel (nearly out). We then pumped in 13.972 gallons of fuel in 126.84 seconds. Shall we round that to 14 gallons in two minutes for ease of discussion? This test revealed that approximately 7 gallons of liquid fuel are added in one minute. The EPA Combined MPG rating for this vehicle is 39, so the total miles on 14 gallons of fuel is 546 miles. We can, therefore, add 273 miles of driving ranger per minute to this green electrified vehicle. 

This test was reproduced at two other stations. One in Acton Mass, and another in Maynard Mass. We found that around 7 gallons per minute is typical of the flow rate of the fuel pumps. The Venza is also handy since it has the same MPG rating as the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid, one of the top-selling green crossovers in America. Toyota’s RAV4 Hybrid is also one of the top-selling vehicles of any type in America. Vehicles like the Prius, Elantra, Sonata, Corolla, and Camry offer a dramatically higher MPG rating, but we figured we’d use an AWD crossover SUV to make this a fair fight for the battery-only vehicle we chose for comparison.

Powering a Battery Only Crossover - Time 18 Minutes - Range Added 212 Miles
Determining the time to charge up a battery-electric crossover is much more difficult than determining the time to fill up a hybrid-electric vehicle. Sadly, there is a long list of things that slow down charging. How many vehicles are charging nearby, the state of charge of the EV, the weather, the rating of the charging station. You get the picture. It’s very fuzzy math. So, let’s set all that aside and use the perfect scenario Hyundai presents it in its marketing info and specs. 

Hyundai says that its Ioniq 5 SE crossover has a 303-mile range and that it can charge up from 10% to 80% in just 18 minutes under ideal circumstances. So, let’s determine the miles of range added per minute. 70% of 303 is 212.1 miles. 212.1 divided by 18 minutes equals 11.78 miles of range added every minute. Let’s call that 12 miles of added range per minute. 

Comparing A Hybrid Electric to a Battery-Only Vehicle’s Added Range Per Minute
Multiple studies by respected organizations have listed charging concerns as a primary barrier to entry for new buyers of battery-only vehicles. We now know that a hybrid electric vehicle can add about 273 miles of range in 1 minute and that an “ultra-fast” charging battery-electric vehicle can add 12 miles of range in 1 minute. So, the hybrid electric vehicle can add range in public about 23 times faster than a battery-electric vehicle under ideal circumstances. Another way to view the facts is that a hybrid can add 5,000 miles of range in same number of minutes that a battery-only vehicle can add about 200 miles of range.

This dramatic difference in how we power various green vehicles may be an important reason why hybrid-electric vehicle adoption is now outpacing battery-only vehicle adoption among those shoppers who decide to purchase a green vehicle—particularly shoppers who don't have the luxury of their own home charging station. 

Author Note: If you'd like to compare the cost per mile of the hybrid-electric vehicle in our story vs the cost per mile of the battery-only vehicle, the closest DCFC station to the gas station in the story charges $0.64/kWh. It is located at Townsend Ford.

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John Goreham is an experienced New England Motor Press Association member and expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on Linkedin and follow his work at our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John's by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ Grammarly grammar and punctuation software when proofreading.