Charging time: the table, by energy and by power
A charge is measured in kilowatt-hours to deliver, not in percentages of battery. The rest is a division.
Updated on 14 September 2026
How to read the table without picking the wrong row
The left column is not the size of your battery, it is the energy you are putting back into it. A 60 kWh battery taken from 20 to 80 per cent wants 36 kWh, not 60. That is the figure that goes into the arithmetic, and it is the distinction nearly every table on the web forgets to make.
For scale: a daily 50 kilometre round trip uses something in the order of 9 to 10 kWh, so the 20 kWh row already covers two ordinary days. The 40 and 60 kWh rows are weekend cases, or coming back from a long drive.
Duration of a charge, in hours and minutes
| To deliver | Socket 2.3 kW | Unit 7.4 kW | Unit 11 kW | Unit 22 kW |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 kWh | 8 h 42 | 2 h 42 | 1 h 49 | 0 h 55 |
| 40 kWh | 17 h 23 | 5 h 24 | 3 h 38 | 1 h 49 |
| 60 kWh | 26 h 05 | 8 h 06 | 5 h 27 | 2 h 44 |
Exact divisions, losses excluded. The night ECO window, 01:00 to 07:00, lasts six hours: anything above six hours in this table spills into a dearer rate, and anything under five would even fit inside the PEAK window if it really had to.
The question is not speed, it is the window
Nobody stands waiting beside a charge point at home. A charge is useful if it has finished by the time you leave, and nothing more. The only benchmark that counts is therefore the window: six hours of ECO rate overnight, and six more between 11:00 and 17:00 if the car is there.
From there, a more powerful unit does not buy time saved, it buys headroom. It earns its place when the window shrinks, when there are two cars, or when a charge has to fit inside a midday break.
That is why the 2.3 kW heavy-duty socket fails: it fits inside no window at all. It charges, but it spends half its time charging at the full rate.
The three things that stretch the real duration
- Losses
- The onboard charger and the battery turn part of what goes in into heat. Allow a margin in the order of ten per cent on the times in the table.
- The end of the charge
- Above 80 per cent the car reduces the current by itself to spare the battery. The last few per cent take far longer than the first, which is one more reason to aim at 80 rather than 100.
- Load shedding
- If the house is drawing heavily at the same moment, the unit drops its power, which is exactly what we ask it to do. A shed charge runs longer than a theoretical one, and that is the price of not tripping the main breaker.
Tell us what is in your consumer unit
Describe what sits on your board and we will say what can be shifted and what cannot. By phone on +32 495 88 75 92 or through the questionnaire.
Sources for this page
- Public Service of Wallonia, the two-rate schedule changes on 1 January 2026Checked on 2026-09-14
- ORES, the 2026 distribution tariffsChecked on 2026-09-14