How long does it take to charge a Tesla?

At a Supercharger, you’ll typically be able to add 150 to 200 miles of range to a Tesla in less than 30 minutes—sometimes more, sometimes less.

With a typical home EV charger, you can completely recharge a Tesla’s battery overnight, adding roughly 25 to 40 miles of range per hour that it’s plugged in.

The exact charging times will depend on the specific Tesla model, the charger’s speed, and how fully you want to charge the battery.

Tesla operates the most reliable network of high-speed roadside EV chargers in North America. Some Supercharger stalls are faster than others, and certain Tesla models are more energy-efficient than others. Other conditions can affect charging times as well. So it’s hard to pin down a precise charging time.

A decent rule of thumb is that you’ll usually be able to charge from 20% to 80% battery capacity in less than 30 minutes. Reddit is a good source of real-world perspectives

 on charging times and how it might affect your pace on road trips. 

As of 2024, Tesla lists the following best-case Supercharging times as:

Those estimates are based on a handful of important yet easily achievable assumptions:

• Your battery is preconditioned. This is a setting that will kick on automatically if you use the Tesla’s onboard navigation system, and primes the battery to accept a charge at a high speed.

• The battery is mostly empty. Supercharging times slow down as the battery fills up. This is why Tesla (and most EV manufacturers) recommend charging the battery to about 80% and then moving on—unless you really need the full range.

• You charge at a 250 kW Supercharger. Some older Supercharger sites max out at 150 kW. Newer V3 or V4 Superchargers can hit up to 250 kW.

• The Supercharger site is operating at peak power. This isn’t always the case at times of peak demand.

• The weather isn’t too hot or cold. Extreme temperatures can slow down the charging speeds.

Once a Tesla gets to about 90% of its capacity, the charging rate slows dramatically. In certain cases, it can take an hour to reach a complete charge. Tesla does not explicitly discourage charging to 100%, though they may nudge you toward shorter Supercharging sessions by automatically setting your car to stop charging at 80%. This is done “to reduce congestion at high-use Superchargers,” as they phrase it on their website.

Superchargers are great for road trips, but most Tesla owners do most of their charging at home. Most owners choose to install a Level 2 charger. The cost and power demands are usually similar to an electric stove or water heater.

Most of the current Tesla models can charge as fast as 11.5 kilowatts—the speed you’ll get with a 48-amp hardwired charger like the Tesla Wall Connector, among many others. Some lower-end Tesla variants only charge at 7.6 kW, or 32 amps. (Older Model S cars could sometimes charge as fast as 19 kW, or 80 amps, but those are no longer in production.)

If you prefer an EV charger that plugs into an outlet, the maximum speed is 9.6 kW or 40 amps, which is the maximum output allowed by code for non-hardwired appliances.

In every case, these charging speeds are fast enough to fully recharge any Tesla overnight, if not faster.

In some scenarios, you might want to or need to use a slightly slower Level 2 charger, at 24 amps or 16 amps. If you’re plugging your charger into an outlet that was built for a clothes dryer, for example, you’ll likely have to settle for one of those slower speeds. But many owners find that this is more than enough speed for their daily drives.

And then of course, you always have the option to charge your Tesla with a standard wall outlet. This so-called Level 1 charging is slow, and will take a few days to fully recharge a car. But if you don’t drive very far most days, it can work.

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