EV InfrastructureCharging Calculators & Site Planning

EV Infrastructure

Charging Calculators & Site Planning

A 350 kW charger almost never gives you 350 kW for long. Pick a vehicle (car, Class 8 semi or air taxi), pick a plug, and watch where the power actually goes — then put a dozen of them on one electrical service and see what the site really needs.

Approximate: real-world curves vary

1 · Vehicle

2 · Charger

3 · Session

Starting SOC10%
Target SOC80%
Battery temperature

Electricity price$0.48 / kWh

Range units

Compare

Pin up to 3 vehicle + charger combos to overlay their curves. Classes mix freely, so try a Model 3 against a Tesla Semi.

10%SOC
0kW
Press Plug in to play the session at 60×.

Power delivered vs. time

Data table (per-minute samples)

State of charge vs. time

Minutes per 10% slice

slowest slice
SliceMin Avg kW

How we calculate this: vehicle session

Delivered power at every 1-second step is min(car curve at this SOC after temperature, charger rating, charging voltage × cabinet amps, 800V fallback ceiling, station output limit). The lowest of those is what the chart shows; whichever wins most of the session names the "main limit".

The 500 A rule. A cabinet has a current ceiling as well as a power rating. Most 350 kW CCS cabinets stop at 500 A, and power is volts × amps, so a 400 V-class pack sitting at 345–390 V is physically capped near 173–195 kW. Pack voltage is modelled as a straight line from vMin at 0% SOC to vMax at 100%.

Losses. Energy into the pack is integrated from the delivered power; energy billed at the plug is that divided by 0.94 on DC (0.92 on AC), so the meter always reads more than the pack gained.

All numbers are estimates. Real sessions also carry HVAC and control loads, SOC calibration windows and cabinet sharing, none of which are modelled here.

Why fast charging slows down

⚡ Lithium plating risk

As the anode fills up, lithium ions have fewer places to slot into. Push current too hard at a high state of charge and metallic lithium plates onto the anode instead, which means permanent capacity loss and a dendrite/short risk. The BMS taper above roughly 60–80% is the insurance policy.

🌡 Heat

Fast charging dumps waste heat into the cells faster than the coolant loop can pull it out. A cold pack can't accept high current either (ion mobility collapses), which is why preconditioning on the way to a charger matters so much. Too hot or too cold, the BMS cuts power to protect the cells.

🔌 Voltage and current limits

Power = volts × amps, and a cabinet has a ceiling on each. Most 350 kW CCS cabinets top out near 500 A, so a 400 V-class car physically cannot exceed about 175–200 kW no matter what the sticker says; an 800 V car draws the same power at half the current and gets the full rating. Tesla went the other way, roughly 700 A but only 500 V, so a 400 V Tesla really does see 250 kW at a Supercharger, while an 800 V car plugged into one has to split its pack and settle for a fraction of its peak.

⏱ C-rate, not kilowatts

A charger's kW only means something relative to the pack it is filling. 250 kW into a 75 kWh Model 3 is 3.3C, which is ferocious. A 1.2 MW megawatt cabinet into a Tesla Semi's 850 kWh is 1.4C, which is why a megawatt still needs half an hour. Air taxis sit at the other extreme: tiny packs charged at 2–3C, several times a day, and replaced on flight hours rather than range loss.

Each of these gets a longer treatment in the articles.