Home » Business » The Volkswagen ID.3 will be able to charge its batteries at a power of 80 kW, beating the Peugeot e-208 or the Hyundai Kona EV

The Volkswagen ID.3 will be able to charge its batteries at a power of 80 kW, beating the Peugeot e-208 or the Hyundai Kona EV

Among the many data that manufacturers provide about their electric cars there is the one of the maximum load power. In the case of the Volkswagen ID.3 58 kWh it would be 100 kW. An important fact to know to what extent it will be possible to carry out a fast charge, especially when you are traveling.

However, manufacturers do not usually communicate what is called the load curveThat is, how is that load. And is that if a car like the Volkswagen ID.3 can be recharged with a power of 100 kW, it will not do so from the moment it is plugged in until it is unplugged to follow its route.


Broadly speaking, the battery of a car is no different from that of a mobile. The more empty it is, the faster it will recharge at first, raising the charging power to its maximum, it will stay there for a while and will subsequently lower its charging power until it is full.

Hence, the really important data is not the maximum charging power itself, but how it is charged and how long it maintains that maximum. That is the load curve. Thus, it is of little use if a car can charge up to 150 kW if it will only reach that power a few minutes and the rest of the time it will charge 30 kW.

Volkswagen Id3 Load Curve Source: Electromobilitate

An Electromobilitate user, traveling in Germany, stumbled upon two Volkswagen ID.3 1st Edition PRO versions charging at an Ionity station. He was able to check how the ID.3 battery is shared in a fast charge of Ionity and thus get an idea of ​​what its charge curve is like.

One of the two ID.3s had a 26% battery charge level when connected to the station. What is most surprising is how quickly the load approaches the 100 kW Volkswagen promises for the ID.3 with a 58 kWh battery.

Up to 80% load always above 50 kW

Volkswagen Id 3 1st

That maximum power is maintained until it reaches 31% load to then drop linearly up to 50kW when it reaches 72% load. It stays that way up to 82% and from there, the load drops to 20 kW of power to reach 100%. In total, from 26% to full charge 52 minutes have passed.

Thus, the average load power of the ID.3 stands at 79 kW, a value above models such as the Peugeot e-208 (75 kW) or the Hyundai Kona EV (64 kW). It is also a much higher value than what the BMW i3 and Renault Zoe can accept, limited by their on-board charger at 50 kW.

Volkswagen ID.3

Still, it should be noted that the ID.3 reaches 80% load with a power always greater than 50 kW. Hence, it took less than an hour to fully charge an Ionity station. In any case, it is a positive fact for the clients of an ID.3, since the loads in trip will not lengthen too much, at least, in the Ionity points.

How much does it cost to charge an electric car with the electricity rates in Spain in 2020


At the moment, only these two ID.3 have been seen loading, it will be necessary to see when the car is effectively marketed how the units in circulation behave. And we cannot forget that with just two cars we cannot extrapolate a final and absolute result.

And is that the charging power also varies depending on the state of initial charge of the battery (the state-of-charge or SoC, which we can read in some publications) and the ambient temperature, among other factors.

In Motorpassion | First contact with the Volkswagen ID.3: an electric car with brutal habitability and equipment that convinces | We tested the Peugeot e-208, an electric car that convinces with its design and dynamism, but not with its autonomy

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