Look, I’m just going to say it – we’ve been having the wrong argument about electric vehicles for years now. The entire conversation around EV charging has been dominated by this weird obsession with matching gas station speeds, and it turns out that’s not even what people actually do when they stop for gas. Which, if you think about it for more than five seconds, makes a lot of sense.

The Five-Minute Charging Myth Nobody Asked For

Seth Cutler, the CEO of Ionna (the charging network backed by basically every major automaker not named Tesla), recently sat down for an interview on The Drivecast and dropped what should be an obvious truth but somehow isn’t: “This idea that charging has to be done in five minutes or people won’t buy EVs is just not accurate.”

And he’s right. But here’s what gets me – we’ve all collectively bought into this narrative that gas stations are these hyper-efficient pit stops where you’re in and out in three minutes flat. Have you actually been to a gas station recently?

“Nobody stops to fuel their vehicle taking gasoline, gets out, rushes as fast as possible, puts as much fuel in the car as possible, and gets back in the car and drives away,” Cutler said. Which, yeah. Obviously. When’s the last time you filled up without going inside for coffee, or a bathroom break, or to grab some overpriced snacks you didn’t need?

Gas Stations Aren’t Even Gas Stations Anymore

Cutler pointed out something that the oil industry figured out decades ago: “Some of these gas stations today are more like a restaurant than a gas station. Look at Wawa, Sheetz, Casey’s, Buc-ee’s, Wally’s – these are places people are spending time inside the store.”

Not gonna lie, if you’ve never been to a Buc-ee’s, you’re missing out on the absolute fever dream that is modern American commerce. These places have 120 gas pumps and sell everything from brisket sandwiches to kayaks. People drive hours out of their way specifically to stop there. The gas is almost incidental.

The thing is, these companies make most of their money inside the store, not at the pump. That’s the actual business model. So this idea that we all need to be done with our energy fill-up in under five minutes? It’s solving a problem that doesn’t really exist in the way we think it does.

But Wait, Aren’t EVs Still Struggling?

Here’s where it gets interesting. Cutler’s got receipts for his argument: “The proof is in the pudding in that 6% of all cars sold in July were still EVs with the existing current infrastructure set and technology set on the cars.”

Six percent might not sound like a revolution, but it’s happening right now with charging that takes 20-40 minutes, not five. People are already buying these cars. They’re already figuring it out. The infrastructure isn’t perfect – far from it, actually – but the idea that everything’s waiting on some magical five-minute breakthrough? That’s just not what the data shows.

I mean, think about it. Most EV owners charge at home overnight. The public charging network is for road trips and people without home charging. And on a road trip, you’re probably stopping for 20 minutes anyway to stretch, use the bathroom, grab food. That’s just… how road trips work?

China’s Racing Ahead (But Should We Care?)

Now, China is getting close to that five-minute charging holy grail. They’re throwing resources at battery technology in ways that make American investment look like pocket change. And good for them, honestly. Better batteries are better batteries, and if they crack ultra-fast charging, great.

But here’s my take – and I know this might be controversial – we might be optimizing for the wrong metric entirely. What if instead of obsessing over charging speed, we focused on making charging as convenient as possible? More chargers in more places. Reliable chargers that actually work when you pull up to them (revolutionary concept, I know). Pricing that makes sense. Apps that don’t make you want to throw your phone out the window.

“This idea that charging has to be done in five minutes or people won’t buy EVs is just not accurate.”

What The Future Actually Looks Like

Cutler started to explain what the future of EV charging looks like in America, though the quote cuts off. But from what I can tell, the industry’s figuring out that it’s not about pure speed. It’s about integration into how people actually behave.

The charging networks that succeed probably won’t be the ones that shave off five more minutes. They’ll be the ones that make the experience painless. That partner with the amenities people actually want. That build reliability into the system first, and then worry about speed improvements.

And you know what? Maybe that’s fine. Maybe we don’t need to replicate the gas station experience down to the minute. Maybe the EV charging experience gets to be different – and maybe that’s not automatically worse.

The Real Question Nobody’s Asking

Here’s what keeps me up at night about this whole debate: we’re so focused on whether EVs can match gas cars on this one specific metric that we’re missing the bigger picture. The transition to electric is happening. It’s messy, it’s slower than some people want, and faster than others are comfortable with. But it’s happening with 20-minute charging stops, not five-minute ones.

Six percent of new car sales is small, sure. But it’s not nothing. And it’s happening despite all the hand-wringing about charging times. Which kind of suggests that maybe, just maybe, we’ve been arguing about the wrong thing this entire time.

The five-minute charging benchmark? It’s a red herring. A convenient talking point that sounds reasonable until you actually think about how people behave. And the sooner we move past it and focus on building charging infrastructure that works for how people actually live, the better off we’ll all be.