The Cybertruck is the first 800-volt Tesla, with the highest charging power out of all its models. Tesla officially says that it can’t charge at any more than 250 kilowatts, exactly the same as all the other models, but that’s not entirely true. If you hook it up to a third-party charger that can deliver 800 volts or more, you can see it exceed 300 kW.
Tesla probably says the Cybertruck can charge at up to 250 kW because none of its four generations of Superchargers can deliver more, not even the latest V4 Supercharger. So charging from a V3 or V4 Supercharger should produce the same results.
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The Cybertruck charges quicker than advertised
Even though Tesla says the Cybertruck can only charge at up to 250 kW, its 800-volt architecture actually allows it to exceed 300 kW, if you hook it up to a powerful third-party charger.
Our own Tom Moloughney found out in the Cybertruck V3 Supercharger charging test for his channel State of Charge that it’s not that quick to charge. He got a dual-motor Cybertruck down to 0% state of charge, then charged it to 100%, and while it starts out at almost 250 kW, the charging power quickly starts tapering off.
By the time the battery hit 15%, the charging power had already dropped to 220 kW, and by the time it hit 50%, it was down to 125 kW. At 90% state of charge, the Cybertruck is drawing around 70 kW. The flat-to-full charging session was completed in just under an hour and a half. The truck replenished 122 kWh, as displayed on the screen inside the vehicle.
Tom points out that he’s heard from other Cybertruck owners that the truck is capable of maintaining about 250 kW until about 30% state of charge before it starts dropping. In the charging curve for the session he recorded, you can see there is a clear step between when the vehicle is charging at full power and when it drops to 220 kW when it reaches the 15% mark.
So you could expect it to do a bit better, but if you are charging all the way to 100%, then it won’t really matter if it can hold 250 kW until 30% or if it steps down to 220 kW at 15%. Tom isn’t particularly impressed with how the truck performed during the charging session, and he says that the charging infrastructure is perhaps more to blame than the vehicle itself. Once Tesla increases the power of its Superchargers and updates the Cybertruck, we should see it charge even quicker.
