Tesla's Impressive New Battery Charges To 80% In 32 Minutes

Range anxiety and charging remain hindrances for many wanting to make the switch to electric vehicles. Aside from often problematic charging points, many aren't willing to wait while their EVs slowly recharge their batteries. Of course, the advent of fast chargers has made things a lot better. However, for real progress to be made, we need to look at the batteries themselves.

Tesla has long expressed an interest in fitting its electric cars with soda can-sized 4680 batteries, which are not only cheaper but also more powerful. What's more, they should be able to offer much faster charging than conventional batteries. A real-life experiment seems to corroborate these claims, with one driver documenting the impressive rate at which his Texas-made Model Y gleaned electricity.

As seen in the tweet below, the electric SUV was able to charge from 0 to 80% in just 32 minutes at a Californian Supercharger with a 250 kW peak output. While that's undeniably impressive, it's still not the best we've seen from several automakers.

It may beat the Polestar 2 in the charging stakes - the Swedish EV can charge from 10-80% in about 40 minutes - but the Model Y with 4680 batteries is still beaten by the likes of the Kia EV6 and Hyundai Ioniq 5. Both Korean competitors are able to charge at 250 kW, allowing the batteries to reach 10-80% in just 18 minutes. This isn't the first experiment the owner has done, though.

Previously, the driver arrived at a charging station with zero miles of indicated range left. "Plugged in at 12:25 AM with 0 miles of range (actually drove 3 miles beyond with seemingly no impact on acceleration)." At 1:17 AM, the Model Y had an impressive 270 miles of range.

Aside from improved charging speeds, another positive association with 4680 batteries is low costs. This mostly comes down to the fact that the larger cells are cheaper to produce which would, therefore, bring vehicle costs down. But as with anything in life, there are always downsides. The tabless items are more prone to contamination. Metal fragments could find their way into the battery pack, which could lead to short-circuiting. It's also tougher to cool these batteries, which may lead to overheating. Hopefully, the pros outweigh the cons as more and more Teslas get the newer batteries.