What one electric-scooter charge looks like, read every two seconds

A Metrion unit logged one charge of an electric-scooter charger every two seconds. It drew about 730 W at a power factor close to 1.00 for 43 minutes, stepped down and tapered for an hour, then idled at about 7 W with a power factor of 0.25 for the 57 minutes the scooter stayed plugged in. The charge drew about 0.8 kWh.

Calibration run. We recorded this charge on purpose before calibrating, to get the data to calibrate Metrion against a reference multifunction meter. That calibration is now complete. One charger, one session; no general claim is made from it.

Full write-up: download the PDF, with every source and figure.

What was measured?

A portable electric-scooter charger rated at up to 12 A output, 33–60 V DC, on a 170–270 V AC supply. One Metrion unit read its single-phase supply every two seconds for three and a half hours in September 2026, from plug-in to well after the charge finished.

Power and power factor over one charge: about 730 W at power factor near 1.00, a step down at 23:30, a taper to about 135 W, then standby at about 7 W and power factor 0.25. — Active power (blue) and power factor (grey). Gaps in the log are left blank.

What does the charge look like?

Stage	Time	What the meter saw
Full-power charging	22:47–23:30	About 730 W (≈ 3.05 A at ≈ 241 V), power factor ≈ 1.00
Taper	23:30–00:29	A step down to about 455 W, then a smooth fall to about 135 W
Standby	00:29–01:27	About 7 W at power factor ≈ 0.25, scooter still plugged in

The charge drew about 0.8 kWh from the supply: 0.81 kWh with the logger’s short drop-outs during charging (about 11 minutes) filled at the steady charging power, 0.72 kWh if they are left out. Measured as a bill would, kWh ÷ kVAh, the power factor while charging was 0.986.

How does power factor change with load?

Load level	Average power factor	Share of readings
Full charge current (500–800 W)	0.996	28%
Heavy (300–500 W)	0.992	22%
Moderate (100–300 W)	0.890	21%
Light (10–100 W)	0.699	8%
Idle / standby (under 10 W)	0.238	22%

What is worth noticing?

The highest draw is the first 45 minutes. For anyone charging several vehicles on one connection, that is when they add to demand.
Clean while charging, poor when idle. A single monthly power-factor figure hides that a device’s power factor depends on what it is doing.
An hour of bay time doing nothing. In a shared or fleet bay, a charge-complete alert would let the next vehicle start an hour sooner.
Detail a bill cannot carry. A 30-minute demand block blurs the step at 23:30 into an average; a monthly bill loses it entirely.

A worked illustration, not a measurement. Twenty chargers like this plugged in at the end of a shift would add about 20 × 0.73 = 14.6 kW at once. Whether that matters depends on whether that half-hour is already the busiest of the month, which only interval data from the panel can tell you.

What are the limits of this log?

This was the calibration run. The meter’s own energy counter read zero and some voltage readings did not match, which is what the calibration then corrected. The energy figure above is worked out from the logged power, not read from that counter.
About 9% of samples showed voltage drop-outs and were removed; the logger also had gaps, including about 22 minutes before charging began.
One phase, one charger, one session.

Want to see this on your own panel?

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