We all know the Cybertruck is Cyberfucked, right? It is the fever dream project of a ket-head billionaire, and it shows. It’s ugly, impractical, dreadful off-road, has a horrific range, is fragile, dangerous, expensive, tends to make the driver look like a “Yahtzee” sympathiser, and is, unsurprisingly, a sales flop. But owners have been holding out for the only possible upside left: unlocking super-fast charging. Sadly, even that hope has now been dashed.
Let me be clear, the Cybertruck needs super-fast charging.
For one, it was what was originally promised. Tesla guarantees 128 miles of added range for 15 minutes, and that eventually, the Cybertruck will reach a peak charge rate of 500 kW, allowing its 123 kWh battery pack to charge from 10% to 80% in under 30 minutes. This suggested that the Cybertruck’s range and charge time would be comparable to a Model 3. However, Tesla did tease an 18-minute 10% to 80% time, which would make the Cybertruck by far the fastest-charging Tesla.
Unfortunately, when the Cybertruck hit the market, these charge speeds were nowhere to be seen. Initially, charge rates were limited to 250 kW and then upped to 325 kW to match the capability of Tesla’s V3 superchargers. Even with this upgrade, 10% to 80% charges take 45 minutes. The peak rate does hit the 325 kW limit, but its average rate is just 118 kW, or just less than a base-spec Model 3 with an LFP battery.
That charge rate isn’t an issue for the Model 3, as it is a very efficient car, getting around 275 miles of real-world range, so the miles added per hour of charging are relatively high at 480. The Cybertruck, on the other hand, is woefully inefficient! Despite its giant 123 kWh pack, owners are reporting real-world ranges of 224 miles to as little as 160 miles. As such, the Cybertruck is only reaching 186 miles of range added per hour of charging, or significantly less than half of what the Model 3 gets. It also means the Cybertruck only gets 46 miles of added range per 15 minutes of charging, which is much less than half of what was promised.
With such an abysmal range and slow charge speeds, even cheap EVs like a Renault 5 (which costs the equivalent of $30,000) are better for long-range trips, as they get the same real-world range but significantly faster charge speeds — at least in terms of miles added per hour charging.
To make the Cybertruck even remotely usable in the real world, it needs to unlock that 500 kW charge rate! And owners have been holding out for it.
Now, 500 kW-capable V4 charging stations are finally being built in the US, and this mythical charging speed is becoming a reality. To show this off, Tesla posted the teaser video on X (watch it here).
In the very short clip, you can see the Cybertruck displaying that it achieved a 500 kW charge rate. Along with this, Tesla announced that a Cybertruck can “recover up to 44% in 15 mins” on a V4 stall if it comes with a low state of charge and a preconditioned battery, which is presumably what is happening in the clip.
So, problem solved, right?
Not at all…
This clip is very short and doesn’t actually show how long it took the Cybertruck to charge or how long it stayed at 500 kW. But tellingly, the dash says that it will take 35 minutes to get to its 80% charge limit. That isn’t significantly faster than its previous charge time, and if you do the maths, it means it is averaging just 170 kW from 10% to 80%. In other words, the Cybertruck can only maintain this high charge speed for a tiny amount of time. In fact, Tesla themselves have admitted that this new 500 kW limit only reduces charge times by 13%.
I think I need to put this into perspective. This new charge time translates to approximately 240 miles of real-world range added per hour of charging, or half the miles added per hour of charging that a base-spec Model 3 gets. Even that $30,000 Renault 5 does 260 miles of real-world range, added per hour.
So, no, this hasn’t solved the problem at all.
But why hasn’t this helped? Well, for two reasons.
Firstly, Tesla’s in-house 4680 battery. It was supposed to be their ticket to dominating the EV market, but in reality, it sucks. This battery was used in the US-built Model Ys before the Cybertruck, and owners have been complaining about slow charge speeds since day one. The issue is thermal efficiency. Not only do these cells generate a lot of heat for the power they deliver, but the pack itself struggles to dissipate that heat. So, the pack overheats easily, leading to reduced charge speeds.
Many hoped that the 800V architecture of the Cybertruck (which reduces amps, so less heat is created) and a second-generation, more thermally efficient 4680 pack would solve this issue. But you can only polish a turd so much, and even after optimisation, the Cybertruck battery sustains a thermal load of just 170 kW of charging.
Worst of all, this problem isn’t isolated to the Cybertruck. All of Tesla’s vehicles have very “peaky” charge rates.
Take a Model 3 Long Range. Its peak charge rate is 250 kW, but it can only charge its 78.1 kWh pack from 10% to 80% in 27 minutes, which means it averages out at just 124 kW, or half its peak rate. An Ioniq 6 Long Range is slightly cheaper than the 3, and it has a lower peak charge rate of just 233 kW, but it can charge its 77.4 kWh battery in only 16 minutes, meaning it averages 200 kW, or 85% of its peak rate.
If you crunch the numbers, most EVs’ average charge speed from 10% to 80% is between 70% and 80% of their peak charge speed, whereas every Tesla’s average is less than 50% of the peak, with the Cybertruck at just 34%.
This heavily suggests that all Teslas have serious thermal efficiency issues.
So, why does this matter?
Well, it means the Cybertruck is always going to be a slow-charging hunk of crap, unless Tesla decides to completely redesign the battery pack. Considering how much Tesla has already spent trying to optimise this pack for the Cybertruck, and how much of a sales failure it has been (arguably the worst in automotive history), I doubt this will ever happen.
But it also casts a shadow on Tesla’s ability to keep up with the EV industry. The whole industry, from charging station providers to EV manufacturers, is moving towards higher and higher charge rates. BYD even has a 1 MW charger coming. Yet, almost all EV manufacturers have been able to keep their cars’ average charge rate between 70% and 85% of their peak charge rate, even when chasing these sky-high charge rates. This has enabled them to slash 10% to 80% charge times by more than half, down to as little as 15 minutes or less, even for cars priced to compete with the Model 3. But, with Tesla having an across-the-board average charge rate at 50% of the peak, or lower, when it tries reaching for these higher charge rates, charge times will only tumble by a few per cent, as the Cybertruck demonstrates.
Tesla needs to fully rethink its approach to battery pack design and optimisation in order to stay relevant, which they simply aren’t doing. That could have monumental implications for the company down the line.
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Sources: Notebook Check, X.com, Notebook Check, Notebook Check, EV.com, Inside EVs, Will Lockett, Will Lockett, EV Database, EV Database, EV Database, EV Database, EV Database, EV Database