What's the Difference Between kW and kWh? | EV Basics

in this video we're explaining the difference between kilowatt and kilowatt hour despite their similar names these two terms are completely different kind of like the countries of Slovakia and Slovenia nope they are not the same I just checked get it c z e c h like the Czech Republic oh that's a geography joke hi there I'm Craig Cole from bi-directional charging to power inverters chadamo connectors to the 80 rule there's a lot of EV related terminology you may not be aware of if you've only ever driven Vehicles powered by internal combustion to clear all this up we created Eevee Basics a series of videos to help you understand electric vehicles okay kilowatt versus kilowatt hour these are very similar terms you may have heard of while shopping for an EV one is abbreviated KW and the other kwh but what's the difference well here's the simple answer kilowatt expresses a rate of energy and kilowatt hour represents the storage of energy the number of kilowatts is how fast an EV can absorb or put out energy while kilowatt hours is how much of that energy a vehicle can hold let's dig a Little Deeper first and most importantly the kilowatt is used to express the rate at which EVS charge when DC fast charging the Ford F-150 Lightning for instance tops out at about 150 kilowatts that's the quickest rate this truck can absorb energy in comparison the Nissan Leaf hatchback tops out at just 100 kilowatts which is appreciably slower in this context think of kilowatts as a garden hose the large larger the diameter the more water can flow through at a given time when getting ready to top up your Eevee at a public charger you'll see kilowatt ratings displayed on the units themselves and this helps you select the best charger for your EV while leaving more or less powerful chargers for other drivers I mean there's no sense plugging your Nissan Leaf into a 350 kilowatt unit if the car can only take in 100. save that charger for a Hummer EV pickup or Porsche ticon second kilowatts are also used to express output while us vehicles are still rated in Horsepower the geek you're among you may want to know that one kilowatt is equal to about 1.34 horsepower conversely one horsepower is about 0.75 kilowatts a rear-wheel drive Hyundai ioniq 5 has a single electric motor that delivers 125 kilowatts of oomph multiply that by 1.34 and you get the vehicle's horsepower output which is 168. so kilowatts relate to charging and motor output but getting back to kilowatt hours as mentioned that term is used to describe energy storage specifically the capacity of a vehicle's battery pack really this is no different than the size of a gas tank in a conventional car or truck if kilowatts is the diameter of the hose then kilowatt hours is the volume of the bucket makes sense great the ionic 5 mentioned earlier has a 58 kilowatt hour battery pack while the Lightnings measures 131 the Ford has a much bigger bucket than the Hyundai so it can store a lot more energy but where does this confusing hour stuff come in that's h-o-u-r well again this is for the more Curious among you 131 kilowatt hours means the Lightning's battery can deliver one kilowatt of power for 131 hours or 131 kilowatts for just one hour generally speaking the larger the battery pack the more miles of range and Eevee is likely to have but that is not a guarantee some vehicles are more aerodynamic others might have more efficient electric motors but all that is a topic for another EV Basics video you'll also see kilowatt hours combined with miles to measure how efficient an EV is instead of miles per gallon in a conventional car electric vehicles are rated in kilowatt hours per mile or per 100 miles the EPA rates the standard range ionic 5 at 31 kilowatt hours per 100 miles the lightning extended range is rated at 48 kilowatt hours per 100 miles unlike MPG lower numbers are better and as you'd expect for a big heavy truck with a big heavy battery it's not nearly as efficient as that low riding Hyundai crossover it takes many more kilowatt hours for the lightning to go the same distance as the ionic 5. so just to recap kilowatts and kilowatt hours are very different but related measurements one is a unit of power and the other is a unit of energy keeping things simple just think of garden hoses for kilowatts and buckets for kilowatt hours but when it comes to wireless charging think why TriCity the sponsor of this video wireless charging brings a whole new level of convenience to the EV ownership experience by eliminating bulky cables and clunky connectors just park your vehicle and it starts absorbing energy automatically electricity technology even supports bi-directional and vehicle to grid charging so your EV can seamlessly feed electricity into your home or the broader power network if there's an outage Wireless EV charging by electricity is easy elegant and just as efficient as level 2 Charging with a cable for more information follow the link on screen or in the description box below foreign [Music] next let's put what we've learned about kilowatts and kilowatt hours to practical use here are three popular Eevee models the pole star 2 single motor Kia ev6 standard range and the Chevy bolt euv at 75 kilowatt hours of usable capacity 58 and 65 respectively the pole star looks like it can hold the most energy and thus go the farthest and in fact it can at 270 miles of range versus 232 and 247 for those other competing EVS but how easy will it be to refill that big battery in the pole star or either of those other vehicles well here are the peak charging rates and they vary wildly as you can see now that we know the difference between kilowatts and kilowatt hours you can make a pretty good guess that the lower kilowatt ratings on the pole star and bolt will leave you waiting a lot longer than the ev6 while DC fast charging Nifty a nor maybe not if you drive a bolt and now you know the difference between these two confusing terms the next video in this series will cover dreaded range anxiety and how you can cope with it so make sure you're subscribed and ring that Bell or gong in this case anyway thank you so much for watching this episode of EV basics for Ev pulse I'm Craig Cole

Channel: EV Pulse

Views: 60,841

Keywords: Battery, Car Review, Charging, EV, EV buying, Electric, Electric Vehicle, Review, car buying, educational, electric car, electric cars, electric vehicles, electricity, energy, energy consuption, euv bolt, ev pulse, hummer ev, ioniq 5, kW, kWh, kia ev6, kilo watt, kilo watt hour, kilowatt, kilowatt hour, kilowatt hours, kilowatt hours explained, kilowatt-hour, kilowatts, kw kwh, kwh electrical energy, kwh explained, power, what is a kilowatt, what is a kilowatt hour, what is kwh

Id: Ld_PbMP_9SI

Length: 7min 19sec (439 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 19 2022