The Porsche Taycan and the Lucid Gravity are two electric cars offering some of the highest charging power in the automotive industry. But which one really stands out? This comparison puts them to the test in real-life conditions.
Car manufacturers are constantly making progress in improving the charging speed of their electric vehicles. In this game, Chinese brands are making a strong impression, whether it's BYD, NIO, or XPeng. A few weeks ago, BYD even unveiled the Super E charging platform, supporting a power output of 1,000 kW. The manufacturer promises that its future Han L sedan, which is based on this technology, will be able to recover around 400 kilometers of range in just five minutes.
But today, we're going to put aside these Chinese vehicles, which aren't always readily available here, even if some players like BYD are starting to seriously establish themselves in Europe. Instead, we're going to focus on Western electric cars. And in terms of charging speed, two models stand out: the Lucid Gravity and the Porsche Taycan, which we tested. Which one has the fastest charging? This is determined by a video comparison from the YouTube channel State Of Charge.
Lucid Gravity vs Porsche Taycan: Which electric car charges faster?
Before moving on to the real-life test, let's take a look at the technical specifications of both vehicles. On paper, the Lucid Gravity supports higher charging power, up to 400 kW. But to reach them, you need the necessary equipment and to plug into a 1,000 V station, which isn't exactly common. The Porsche Taycan, for its part, is limited to 320 kW. For the comparison, both cars were charged under the same conditions, with a 350 kW charger.
In the first few seconds of charging, the Gravity reaches 350 kW faster. The Taycan needs a good minute to do so. After ten minutes, the proportion of recharged battery capacity is higher for Porsche (48% versus 42%), which equips its electric car with a smaller battery than Lucid. Charging power dropped to 311 kW for the Taycan and 277 kW for the Gravity, but overall, the latter received the most energy during this period.
A difference between battery capacity percentage and actual range gain
In an electric car, it is generally recommended to recharge the battery to 80% to prevent it from degrading more quickly. The Porsche Taycan reaches this threshold in just 19 minutes, compared to 27 minutes for the Lucid Gravity. For the purposes of the test, State Of Charge still pushed the charge to 100% on both models. The remaining 20% takes much longer than the first 80% in both cases. The Taycan needs 53 minutes for a full charge, the Gravity 74 minutes.
So the German car would emerge victorious from this comparison against its Californian rival? Not so fast. As we mentioned earlier, the Taycan's battery has a lower capacity than the Gravity's. If both vehicles have their batteries charged to 80%, then the Lucid's will benefit from a better range. “The Gravity’s charger delivered an extra 10 kilowatt-hours, which means a range of 65 to 80 km with the Gravity, and you have to take that into account,” Tom Moloughney emphasizes during this comparison.
He also points out that the Gravity is limited here. Officially, it is compatible with a 400 kW charger, but this equipment is still rare these days, hence the choice to first compare the two vehicles with a 350 kW charger. For scientific reasons, the test was still conducted with a 400 kW station to get an idea. We can see that the Lucid car ultimately benefits very little from these additional 50 kW. To obtain a range of 400 miles (644 kilometers), it takes 35.5 minutes with a 350 kW charger and 33.7 minutes with a 400 kW charger.
In both cases, one minute of charging gives more range to the Gravity than to the Taycan, and it is therefore Lucid that wins against Porsche. “These two vehicles can rack up kilowatt-hours like no other I’ve ever recorded. They are charging monsters and, without a doubt, the two fastest-charging electric vehicles currently in North America,” the video concludes.
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