Tesla has now enabled 325kW charging at its V4 Superchargers. Right now, this is exclusive to the Cybertruck, which is the first vehicle to charge above 250kW at Tesla’s Superchargers. This new charging speed was initially being tested by Tesla in early December 2024 at select Supercharger sites in the United States, but this speed upgrade is now rolling out across North America.
The new 325kW peak charging speed has been enabled at V4 Supercharger posts across North America - in both Canada and the United States. V4 Supercharger posts also bring longer cables - a great boon for the Cybertruck in particular, which can sometimes be hampered by the short V2 cables.
While V3 posts are still the most common, Tesla’s Supercharging team is working on upgrading older sites with V4 hardware, including pull-through tow-friendly Supercharging stalls. Tesla’s V4 stalls currently make up approximately 14% of the Supercharger network today - which is a massive improvement since Q4 2023, where they made up just 2%.
The new 325kW peak speed will bring about a 5-minute improvement in charge times, as per some initial testing by Cybertruck owners. That brings the current 0-80% charge speed from 40 minutes down to just 35 minutes. This is mostly due to the vehicle not being able to sustain the higher charge speeds for a significant length of time.
And the best part? This new feature was enabled with an OTA update to the Superchargers. Max de Zegher, Tesla’s Director of Charging, pointed out that this overnight change was delivered quickly, efficiently, and quietly - all without on-site visits.
Being able to push software updates to Superchargers, without requiring on-site visits, is incredibly efficient & powerful. https://t.co/SXaeKfhKes
Your Cybertruck’s touchscreen will display the location of 325kW chargers and automatically prefer navigating to these faster chargers, depending on stall availability. This is similar to how enabling Tow Mode will make your vehicle prioritize Supercharger sites with tow-friendly stalls.
Tesla also confirmed that it is working on its V4 cabinets, which will further upgrade the peak charging speed of the Cybertruck to a staggering 500kW. That’ll be double what other Teslas can do today - due to the massive improvements brought forward by the new 800V architecture.
We expect the arrival of the new V4 cabinets and their 500kW charge speeds to even further boost just how fast Cybertruck can charge. We expect that 35-minute charge time to drop to 30 minutes or less, depending on the Cybertruck’s updated charge curve.
Currently, the Cybertruck is unique with its 800V high voltage and 48V low voltage architectures. While we expected Tesla to bring these two big changes to their first mass-market refresh - the Refreshed Model Y Juniper, that didn’t come true. As such, we don’t expect the new 325kW speed to open up to older vehicles - at least - not yet.
However, there is still room for Tesla to continue improving vehicle charge speeds, features, and curves. They recently enabled a new battery-heating feature for RWD Standard Range vehicles with LFP battery packs, allowing them to Supercharge even faster in cold environments.
Some competitors have exceeded Tesla’s Supercharger speeds - and not just speeds - but overall charge curves. This is especially true with some Chinese competitors - who are pushing LFP battery packs to charge at a stable 150kW across the entire 30-80% range.
Tesla vehicles currently struggle to maintain the charge rate over a longer period of time, which means that while they start fast, they peter out more quickly than other vehicles. The time difference between faster-charging vehicles like the Porche Taycan and the Model 3 was about 60 minutes across an 800-mile distance.
That’s not a huge difference in time overall, especially considering the difference in price points between a Taycan ($101,000 USD - starting) versus a Model 3 ($47,490 USD - LR AWD). It sounds like Tesla is looking for good charging speeds while maintaining battery health and keeping prices low.
While charge speeds may not be the best in the industry, the number of locations and reliability of Superchargers currently more than makeup for it.