How long will public charging take?

If you have no home charger, public charging costs minutes as well as money.

A U.S. Department of Energy Fact of the Week drawing on Energetics’ EVWATTS data found that paid DC fast sessions averaged 42 minutes and 22.0 kWh, across more than 1.4 million paid stops from June 30, 2020 to June 30, 2023. Free fast sessions in the same study averaged 78 minutes and 40.7 kWh. The sample is self-selected EV owners nationwide and does not include Tesla Supercharger sessions. 1

Those averages are planning numbers, not a quote for your corner station. Your car’s charge curve, the charger’s power, battery state of charge, weather, and any queue still move the clock.

Speed still depends on the plug. AFDC consumer guidance puts Level 1 around 2–5 miles of range per hour, Level 2 around 10–30 miles per hour, and DC fast charging around 100–200+ miles in about 30 minutes. DOT’s charger-speed table gives a similar ladder and notes that DC fast charging to about 80% often falls in a 20-minute to 1-hour window on its 60 kWh BEV example. 23

A simple public-only check: count the stops your week really needs, multiply by a realistic session length (the DOE paid average of 42 minutes is one national benchmark), then add detour and queue time. Two paid average stops is about 84 minutes of plug time; three is about 126 minutes — before anything else.

If that wait does not fit, AFDC says to consider a plug-in hybrid: most PHEVs travel about 20–40 miles on electricity alone, then run on gasoline, and most cannot use DC fast chargers. Price the hybrid or PHEV path honestly instead of forcing a pure BEV onto a public-only routine that only works on paper.