Target dealworthy 20W USB-C Car Charger on a MacBook Air: Measured
Target's store-brand 20W USB-C car charger measured on a MacBook Air: 17.5 W delivered. The product listing says 5 V only, but it actually climbs to 12 V and runs real Power Delivery with PPS.
Target’s store-brand “dealworthy” single-port USB-C car charger, tested against a MacBook Air with a low battery, per the methodology. Like every car charger in this series, it was run from a USB-C to 12 V socket adapter.
The numbers
| Rated | 20 W |
| Negotiated | 20 W (12 V up to 1.67 A) |
| Live draw | 17.5 W (11 V at 1.59 A) |
| Protocol | USB PD 3.0 |
| Identifies as | nothing - shows as “PD Charger” |
Profile menu:
| Profile | Rail |
|---|---|
| 15 W | 5 V up to 3 A |
| 20 W | 9 V up to 2.22 A |
| 20 W | 12 V up to 1.67 A (active) |
| PPS | 3.3 - 5.9 V up to 3 A |
The listing undersells it
The product page describes this charger as “3A Output, 5V Voltage”. Read literally, that is a 15 W charger with a single rail.
The hardware says otherwise. It advertises three fixed profiles climbing to 12 V, negotiates the full 20 W, and adds a PPS range on top - Programmable Power Supply, the adjustable band that phones use for fine-grained fast charging. A 5 V-only charger could not do any of that.
This is worth pausing on, because it inverts the usual finding. Most of the time the label is optimistic and the delivered power falls short. Here the retail copy simply describes the bottom rung of the ladder and stops. The profile menu is the honest document.
Where it stops
There is no 15 V or 20 V rail, which is the tier a laptop wants. The Mac takes the 12 V rung and draws 17.5 W, with the voltage sagging to 11 V under load. That is genuine charging and it will gain on a MacBook Air, but at phone-charger pace rather than laptop pace.
For what it is - a cheap store-brand car charger - running correct PD with a PPS range is more than the listing promises and more than the price suggests.
It stays anonymous
The app never gets a brand out of it. With no vendor returned from the standard PD Discover Identity exchange, it shows up simply as “PD Charger”. That is the norm for unbranded and store-brand hardware, and it is not a fault - only a missing courtesy.