> Ford and GM are both betting big on these for their future entry-level EVs and I think they will end up being a common choice where maximum range isn't the customer's primary concern.

A lot of people think they need way more range than they actually do, especially people that have decent charging at home. The think they need long range for the occasional long road trip but even there range is less important than they think it is. For long road trips charging speed is more important.

Briefly, consider a 3000 mile road trip. If your average highway speed is 75 mph that's 40 hours of driving. On top of that 40 hours you have whatever stoppage time there is to refuel/recharge. Let's put a lower bound on that.

Suppose you are in a car that can go 200 miles between stops. When you reach the first stop there are 2800 miles left, so over the course of all future stops on the trip you have to add a total of 2800 miles worth of fuel/charge. Let's say your car is an EV that can add 1000 miles in an hour of charging. That's 2.8 hours of total charging time for the trip.

Someone else in a 300 miles EV but that only adds 300 miles in an hour will first stop with 2700 miles left. They have to add 2700 miles of charge over the course of the trip, which takes 9 hours.

They will have fewer total stops (9) than the 200 mile range fast charging car (14) which favors the long range car because each stop has some overhead that is not spent actually charging but that is unlikely to be enough to make up for the slower charging car spending 6.2 more total hours actually charging.

Where the 300 mile slower charging car shines compared to the 200 mile fast charging car would be for people who have frequent trips like Los Angeles to San Diego and back. The 300 car could do that on one charge. The 200 mile car would would need a charge stop.

Similar for people who have trips like Los Angeles to Los Vegas where they will stay overnight. The 300 mile car could do that with about 10% to spare and then charge at your hotel. The 200 mile car would need a charge stop before reaching Vegas, then you should charge at the hotel, and then you will need one other on the way back. (If you charge to full on the first charge stop you can skip the one at the hotel but then the one on the way back will be longer, so you are better off taking the 3 charge approach that includes the hotel since that one can take place while you are busy losing your money in the casino).

For what it's worth, longer range EVs also tend to support faster charging.

A 250 kW Supercharger only charges at the full 250 kW when the battery is under I think around 25%. After that, it falls off linearly as the battery fills. (EDIT: This is why it's better to do somewhat more frequent, but shorter charging stops. On my road trips, I typically charge to just 60-80% with the expectation of arriving at the next charger with 10-20%)

So if you have a 100 kWh battery compared to a 75 kWh battery, the 100 will give you more miles per hour of charging, simply because it can handle the full 250 kW charge speed longer.

Sure, but the battery types you list (lower capacity with very fast charging vs higher capacity with slower charging) don’t match what is actually in the market.

The best way to get a vehicle that charges quickly in miles-per-hour is to get an efficient EV with a large range and just charge it in the fastest part of its charging curve, usually around 10-60%.

The best cars on that sort of roadtrip metric currently are the Porsche Taycan and Lucid Air because they have large, fast-charging batteries in an efficient form factor.

See https://outofspecstudios.com/10-challenge