EVs come with a whole new vocabulary — much of it used as though everybody already knows what it means. We don’t always. So here’s the WattCar version.
As a rough mental shortcut, 1kWh can mean about 5km of range. So 60kWh? Think roughly 300km. 80kWh? Roughly 400km. 100kWh? Roughly 500km. Not gospel — speed, weather and efficiency move it around — but useful.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: How efficiently the car uses those kWh.
Same letters. Completely different job. kW measures power: the output of a motor or the rate a charger can deliver energy.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: A 350kW charger does not mean your car will take 350kW.
Usually shown as kWh/100km. Lower is better. A car using 15kWh/100km is more efficient than one using 22.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: It tells you how much the car can do with the battery it has.
Typically home, work and destination charging. Overnight at home, slower is usually perfectly fine.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: How much charge you can add while the car would otherwise be parked.
The charger supplies DC electricity directly to the battery. This is generally what you use on a road trip.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: The car’s charging curve matters more than the biggest number on the charger.
Fast charging is generally quickest through this useful middle window. Above 80%, things often slow down. The battery is basically saying: that’s quite enough of that.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: How many minutes 10–80% actually takes.
Peak charging speed is just the highest point. The curve shows how much power the car accepts as the battery fills.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: Average charging performance, not the headline peak.
A standardised test useful for comparing cars. It is not a promise of what you will get on an Australian motorway.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: Use it for comparison. Look for real-world testing for reality.
China’s test cycle often produces higher claimed ranges than WLTP. A 900km CLTC claim is not 900km of Australian real-world driving.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: Don’t compare CLTC and WLTP numbers as though they are the same thing.
Simply how full the battery is. 80% SOC means the battery is at 80%. We could have just said that, but apparently we needed an acronym.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: Useful when talking about charging speed and charging curves.
Battery, electric motor, plug. No petrol engine. The pure electric one.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: This is what most people mean when they simply say EV.
Battery, electric motor and combustion engine. It can drive electrically for a useful distance before the engine becomes involved.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: At WattCar, plugging it in needs to matter.
Electric motors drive the car; a petrol engine can generate electricity when required. Think EV with its own emergency power station.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: How much everyday driving can genuinely be done electrically.
When you slow, the motor can recover energy into the battery instead of wasting all of it as heat through the brakes.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: It helps efficiency, especially around town.
Press to go, lift to slow using regenerative braking. There is still a brake pedal. Please don’t remove it.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: How naturally the system is calibrated.
The car heats or cools its battery before fast charging so it can accept power more effectively. Batteries, apparently, are divas.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: Whether the car can do it automatically when navigating to a charger.
800V systems can enable faster charging with less current and heat. But an 800V badge does not guarantee brilliant charging.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: 350kW. Great. For how long?
A common battery chemistry known for durability and being comfortable with regular 100% charging, usually with lower energy density than some alternatives.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: The practical charging and range behaviour matters more than learning the chemistry exam.
A battery chemistry generally associated with higher energy density.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: Again: practical range, charging and longevity matter more than the periodic table.
A heat pump can warm the cabin using less battery energy than simple resistance heating, particularly in cold weather.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: It can help preserve winter range.
Your car becomes a giant portable power point for tools, camping gear, appliances and more.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: A specification you can actually demonstrate at a barbecue.
Potentially use energy stored in your car to power your house.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: Car, charger, home hardware and local rules all need to support it.
Potentially send energy from your car back into the electricity grid.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: Promising. Also more complicated than the acronym suggests.
Software updates delivered to the car without a workshop visit. Brilliant when they add something useful. Slightly less brilliant when you just wanted to leave.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: Whether updates genuinely improve the car rather than merely change it.
The engine disappeared. Someone eventually realised we could put stuff there.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: Whether it is actually large and accessible enough to be useful.
1C would theoretically charge a battery in about an hour; 2C in half an hour; 4C in around 15 minutes. Reality, naturally, has other ideas.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: It helps compare charging capability across different battery sizes.
A battery designed to accept charging at up to five times its capacity under the right conditions.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: What it sustains in a real 10–80% charge.
Charging measured in megawatts is emerging, especially for heavy vehicles, as charging power keeps climbing.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: For passenger cars, infrastructure and sustained battery acceptance still set the pace.
Manufacturers remove some of the structural layers between battery cells and the vehicle to save space and weight.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: What it does for usable capacity, weight, repairability and cost.
More functions are controlled and updated through software after the car is built. The polite version is that the car evolves. Sometimes we’d quite like them to finish it first.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: Good software should make ownership easier, not turn the driver into beta testing.
Security systems, connectivity and temperature management can use energy while the car appears to be doing nothing.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: How much charge the car loses while parked for days or weeks.
Before charging begins, car and charger communicate and agree on what they can do. When they don’t, you get another useful modern term: swearing.
WATT REALLY MATTERS: Reliable charging matters more than impressive charger specifications.
We’ll keep adding the terms that matter — and translating the ones that don’t.