Big Gulps

How EVs from brands such as Hyundai and Lucid inhale an 800-volt jolt of juice from a 400-volt charging unit.

- By David Gluckman

AS EV MAKERS TRANSITION from 400-volt to 800-plus-volt architectures, the output voltage of any given charging equipment can be the limiting variable in the often confusing fast-charging equation. Higher-voltage architectures have the advantage of lower current requirements to flow the same amount of power, which means they can use thinner and therefore lighter wiring. But EVs built on such architectures still need to have wiring capable of charging when hooked up to lower-voltage charging stations, such as those in Tesla's sprawling Supercharger network.