Why does 110 charge the car at 3mph, but 220 charge at 35mph? It’s 2x volts but >10x charge speed.
In: Physics
Its not just about the voltage, its also about the available current which results in a lot more available power
The 120V chargers are meant to be plugged into any outlet so they’ll be limited to 15A for a mere 1.8kW of input power. Outlets in your home are on 15 or 20A breakers so they can’t really assume for more than about 15A and have it not trip breakers, the slower ones are going to be even below this 15A threshold to keep them small and portable, a 1kW+ power supply generally weighs several pounds and requires heatsinking because even 95% efficiency is a lot of heat trapped in the box
The 240V charges are installed by an electrician and are more permanent installations. Generally they’ll be put on a 30A or 40A breaker similar to an electric water heater. So while it seems that *all* you did was double the voltage, its actually double the voltage *and* over double the available current. A 240V charger on a 40A breaker could pull 9.6 kW to charge with which is 5x the available power, and well over 5x the reasonably available power.
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