Forget 0-60: Think City electric-car charges from 0-80% in 15 mins

Posted: Jan 26, 2010
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With most gasoline powered vehicles, we are interested in how fast they will go from 0-60 mph. Think announced today that it has teamed up with AeroVironment, Inc., a leading developer and supplier of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, to demo the company’s level III fast-charge system and the Think City electric-car.

The team held a 15-minute news conference at the 2010 Washington Auto Show where they charged a Think City from 0-80% using AV’s fast-charge system in 15 minutes.

“THINK and AeroVironment are setting a new standard for extremely quick re-charging ““ zero to 80 percent in just 15 minutes,” said THINK CEO Richard Canny. “This is a major leap forward for electric vehicles. The development and deployment of very-fast-charge stations will help speed the electrification of automobiles in the United States and globally.”

The Think City will be sold in the United States later this year and will have a top speed of 70 miles. On a full charge, the Think City can travel a little more than 100 miles.

- By: Kap Shah


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  • JC

    That is all fine but who cares about how long it takes to charge to 80%? Given the limited range of most electric vehicles not yet in the market and the experience of the Mini-E drivers, most people would care only about how long it takes to FULLY charge, that is 100% (if I may overemphasize).

    I think some marketing gimmick of releasing this piece of info may be misleading. If one is to assume that it takes 15 min to charge to 80%, then a linear extrapolation would lead to 18.75 min to 100% charge. However, if this were the case why not just say 18.7 minutes to a full charge? I don't want to jump the gun here, but i would say the time to a full charge is WAY more than 19 minutes.

    Are we starting a time to charge time wars with this. Why not start at the 100% charge Times rather than a fraction?????

  • Ben

    Actually, this would be a game changer for me. Most of the time I would be city bound,
    driving less than 100 miles on any given day and only wanting to charge overnight.

    But what If I want to take a day trip to the next major city up the road, 90 miles away?
    Conventional wisdom dictates that I either do it in a gas car or make provisions for an overnight trip with an electric vehicle.

    But assuming that an Aerovironments charging infrastructure was in place, I could have enough of a charge in an afternoon to get back home. I'm certainly going to spend at
    least a few hours there – and if 15 minutes gets your an 80% charge – one can assume
    that the final “most difficult” 20% could probably obtained rather easily in those spare
    couple of shopping hours.

    Rather than worrying about if a full charge can be obtained in either 20 or 26.75 minutes, the question we probably should be asking is this: Is it detrimental to long term battery life to be doing these 15 minute @ 80% charges on a regular basis?