These are the fastest-charging EVs on the planet

We start with Mercedes’ flagship limo, but in truth, we could have included any number of Audis, Porsches, Polestars, or Lotuses here – a charge speed of 350kW seems to be the going norm for premium manufacturers these days. The EQS takes it by virtue of a comprehensive recent update which now makes it the longest-range electric car money can buy – up to 575 miles – thanks to its new 122kWh battery and 800-volt tech that allows for 200 miles of range in 10 minutes on a 350kW charger. Rapido.

You know the Cayenne – it’s oft called the saviour of Porsche sports cars, and it lives on into our new electric era too. The figures speak for themselves: 1,140bhp and 1,106lb ft, 0-62mph in 2.5secs (at least in Turbo guise, there’s a 400bhp base version too), and 390kW charge speeds allowing for a 10 to 80 per cent charge in just over a quarter of an hour. Expect to see plenty of these things prowling around High Street Ken in the near future.

Forget the badge on the front – the IM5 and IM6 are not in fact MGs at all, but a sibling brand owned by megacorp parent SAIC over in China. Indeed, you won’t find an MG badge anywhere else on the cars, and based on our experience it shows. Still, thanks to 800V architecture (you can expect to hear plenty more about that throughout this list, essentially the higher the number, the quicker electricity can be delivered through the platform), a 10-80 per cent re-juice at their 396kW charging peak takes 17 minutes.

The Volvo EX60 is the electric sibling to the bestselling XC60, which its maker claims will do 503 miles on a full charge thanks to its whopping 117kWh battery. Real world… expect slightly less, particularly if you’re making use of the full 671bhp everywhere. It also gets 800V architecture (told you), meaning 211 miles of range can be added in 10 minutes using a 400kW charger. Good luck wolfing down your lunch quicker than that. 

Ah, our current Car of the Year. BMW’s new iX3 gets a brand new superbrain that controls the steering, motors, brakes, safety systems and everything else in between, but claims a couple of miles less range than the Volvo courtesy of its smaller 108.7kWh usable battery. It gets an identical peak 400kW charge speed, though BMW says this allows for a slightly superior 231 miles to be added in just 10 minutes. Swings and roundabouts.

No big surprise here, because the soon-to-be-here BMW i3 shares the same Neue Klasse (New Class) EV platform as its bigger brother. Its slippery shape means an increased range of up to 562 miles, compared to the iX3’s 500 miles, while the 800-volt electrical architecture supports charging speeds of up to 400kW. Finding one of those is a bit like finding a needle in a haystack currently, but big things are expected of the new 3er nonetheless.

Lotus beat its own charge speed record when it recently recorded a peak charging speed of 443kW – up from the 402kW it recorded a year prior – resulting in a 10 to 80 per cent charge in exactly 13 minutes and 35 seconds. It set the record at a Lotus dealer in Kuwait using a 450kW charger – the carmaker says it’s already begun rolling out the same ultra-fast chargers in Germany, with other European markets set to follow in the near future.

Is this the fastest charging car currently available in the UK? Quite possibly. The Xpeng G6 only arrived on our shores around a year ago, but the maximum charged speed has nearly doubled since then, up to 451kW. That’s thanks to its new 5C Supercharging (not to be confused with 5G, very different) lithium iron phosphate battery. The fastest public EV chargers in the UK currently are 480kW units in Blackpool – trip to Pleasure Beach, anyone?

Geely owned Zeekr’s premium mid-sized SUV officially promises 480kW DC charging speeds courtesy of its 800V architecture – but various tests in the real world have suggested it’s even faster than that, with Australian outlet The Driven reporting 632kW. A carmaker under promising and overdelivering? That’s a first. Anyway, it all comes courtesy of its Golden Battery, which sounds very much like something out of Willy Wonka.

You know the Yangwang U9 Xtreme – last year it hit 308.4mph, dethroning the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ (304.8mph) to become the fastest road legal car on the planet. With 2,978bhp courtesy of four electric motors, it utilises a 1,200V ultra high voltage platform, capable of supporting up to 1,000A of current, meaning it’ll drain its batteries quicker than the Duracell Bunny can keep up. Fortunately, the platform supports up to 500kW fast charging for super-fast pitstops.

Chinese firm Li Auto’s Mega people carrier also gets a mega charging speed, largely thanks to its – deep breath – 5C CATL Quilin 102.7kWh NMC battery. Bit of a mouthful, isn’t it? Anyway, because it’s ‘5C’ capable (like the XPeng G6 above, you’re not having déjà vu) it can support charging speeds up to 520kW, equivalent to 312 miles of range in 12 minutes. At time of writing it’s solely available in the Chinese market – for now.

Last year saw BYD overtake Tesla as the world’s biggest seller of EVs globally, and its new Super e-Platform could be a further gamechanger yet, capable of supporting charging speeds of up to 1,000kW, or 1.2 miles of charge per second. BYD already builds the Han L and Tang L on the platform in China, and it’s also introduced Megawatt Flash Charging stations capable of supporting such speeds there too. It’s set to arrive in the UK in the Denza Z9 GT, and the Chinese firm says it’ll be introducing megawatt chargers this year too.

The Mercedes-AMG GT XX is a 1,340bhp tri-motor, four-door hypercar that gives us a glimpse of AMG’s first standalone electric model – and it’s no whimsical figment of imagination either. In testing it recorded a 1,041kW maximum charging speed, averaging out at around 850kW – that’s 250 miles of range in five minutes. Merc has also partnered with Alpitronic, a specialist in high power charging, to devise units capable of handling such speeds: already it has a prototype that can handle that amount of energy using a standard CCS cable.