Extending the range with battery swaps or quick charges

On longer journeys you will need more than the range of the vehicle. A normal charge can take up to 8 hours, so you will need something faster on the fly.

Several options are available for range extending the electric car. The most common is quick charge which is available in many places particularly in western EU and Estonia.

A quick charge can charge the car to 80 % in approx. 20 minutes. There is an ongoing development taking place to further speed up the charging process.

It makes sense to measure the charging time in km/h. On other word, how many kilometers of driving can you get from one hour of charging? 

A medium size electric car can go 6 km per kWh. The state of the art is currently at 90 kW which would then yield 540 km/h. This is still not comparable to the speed of filling petrol in a tank. However it makes longer travel with electric vehicles possible without too much inconvenience.

The table below expresses the charging speed of various available chargers.

Figure 8: Network of fast charging stations is developed in Western EU and Estonia

Figure 9: Fast charging stations use special plugs