Estonia has officially opened its nationwide electric vehicle fast-charge network, complete with 165 charging stations spaced out at a distance no further than 60km apart.
Estonia has set up a network of 165 fast-charging stations for the country’s growing number of electric vehicles.
The network is state-backed, having been financed via funds received from a CO2 emission quota sales agreement between the country and Mitsubishi Corporation. The country claims that cars can be charged up to 90% in less than a half-hour and depending on the make of the car, be driven up to 140 km before needing another charge.
Also worth noting is that the entire network comes with a unified payment system that offers drivers a range of payment services, from pay-as-you-go to a 30-euro all-you-can-drive option.
“What makes the Estonian fast charging network unique is the fact that it uses a uniform payment solution and you can either use an authorization card or your mobile phone for making the payment,” explains the head of the Estonia’s EV program, Jarmo Tuisk. “We believe that a nationwide grid of quick chargers encourages growth in the number of EV users, since the drivers no longer need to worry about a somewhat shorter driving range of their electric vehicles.”
There are 619 all-electric cars registered in the Estonian traffic register; approximately 500 of these are used by state authorities. While these numbers might seem negligible, it actually puts Estonia as the second country in the world in terms of share of EVs; that is, there is one electric vehicle per 1,000 cars. Norway, the world leader in this category, registers four EVs per 1,000 cars. The country third on this list is the Netherlands, which has 0.6 electric cars registered per 1,000 vehicles.
CHAdeMO is an organization that supports the fast-charging standard. In a statement, the organization said that by January 2013, more than 1,900 fast chargers have been installed throughout the world (521 of them outside of Japan) and that Estonia’s 165 fast chargers make it the world’s largest operational public fast-charging network to provide universal nationwide service.
The installation of fast chargers started in summer 2012. The stations been used approximately 8,300 times to date.
Story via: elmo.ee
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