Peak vs average charging.

Did you know that even for the Porsche Taycan, there is only a 3-4min difference to re-charge on a 150kW charge point vs a 350kW charge point?

With the average electric vehicle range now enough for most drivers, and without much more to be gained from larger batteries (in their current form) due to weight and cost restrictions, car manufacturers have turned to re-charge speed as a key selling point.

Unhelpfully, cars are advertised using their peak charge power (Taycan, 270kW), with numbers into the hundreds of kW suggesting ever faster charge times if plugged into the highest power charge points.

But cars only charge at peak for a few minutes, if at all. They limit their charge rate for a whole lot of reasons, from outside temperature to battery temperature to battery % charge. 

At Osprey, we continually track the real-world metrics to understand the demand and capabilities of cars on the road and in the future. We adjust our hardware and site strategy accordingly. 

• The average actual charging power of cars registered in 2022 was 95kW
• Of all EVs on the road, less than 10% have an average charging power over 110kW
• So you could serve two cars with two 350kW charge points, or four cars just as fast with four 150kW charge points.

Osprey’s strategy is not to blind drivers with misleading super-fast charge rates, but rather more importantly to provide as many chargers as possible with the appropriate power. We aim to deliver the maximum useable power to as many cars as possible at the same time. 

Hence our load-balancing 150kW charger hubs, where available power from the grid connection is dynamically distributed across more charging bays than traditional setups. More customers are served with as much power as they can take.