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A relatively inexpensive charging station providing 3.3 kilowatts of power (240 volts at 14 amperes) will take several hours to fully recharge an electric vehicle. For example, the Nissan Leaf with its 24 kilowatt-hour battery pack takes approximately 8 hours to recharge. This is reasonable for parking at home or work, but not for “refueling” in the middle of a trip. Subject to the power handling of the car’s charging electronics and battery chemistry, higher-power charging stations reduce charging time.
The SAE J1772-2009 connector can supply 16.8 kW (240V,70A), the VDE-AR-E 2623-2-2 connector in Europe provides up to 43.5 kW (63A three-phase) and CHAdeMO level 3 charging stations can supply 62.5 kW (500V DC, 125A): the latter reduces the time to recharge the Nissan Leaf to 80% of capacity to about 30 minutes.