- The Cybertruck is Tesla's first passenger EV that uses an 800-volt battery pack.
- The higher voltage can help achieve higher charging speeds, as long as the charger can keep up.
- Thanks to the 800V system, the angular pickup set a new charging speed record in Europe, with a CCS to NACS adapter no less.
The Tesla Cybertruck is the American electric car maker’s first passenger model built on an 800-volt architecture. This allows for greater charging speeds to be reached compared to 400V models such as Model 3 and Model Y, but as of this writing, there’s no public Tesla Supercharger stall capable of delivering such a high voltage in the United States.
As a result, charging the roughly 123-kilowatt-hour battery in the Cybertruck can take quite a bit of time when hooked up to a 250 kW Supercharger. During our testing, a top-up from 11% to 80% took exactly 45 minutes with our own Mack Hogan observing a maximum speed of 206 kW and an average session speed of 118 kW.
The Cybertruck, however, can do much more on the charging front–just not in the United States, as it turns out.
One of the first Tesla Cybertrucks shipped and registered in the European Union set a new charging speed record in Bratislava, Slovakia’s capital, last week. It was hooked up to a 600 kW Ejoin charger through a CCS to NACS adapter and it registered a peak rate of 405 kW. The previous record of 327 kW was set in the U.S. using an NxuOne 1,000V charging station.
The new peak was recorded at a 7% state of charge but the curve quickly tapered and at the end of the session, the average speed was 113 kW. The total time spent charging to 100% was one hour and two minutes and the total amount of energy pumped into the battery was 118.8 kWh.
We don't know what the battery's state of charge was at the beginning of the session, but it likely wasn't 0%, seeing how during our own Tom Moloughney's testing the truck gobbled up 122 kWh of energy from empty to full and took a smidge under one and a half hours to complete the session.
That’s still pretty impressive, though, and it goes to show that the technology for shorter charging stops is here already. Now, the chargers just need to catch up to 800- and even 900-volt-capable vehicles like the Cybertruck, updated Porsche Taycan, Lucid Air and Kia EV6.
