How long does it take to charge the battery and where can I charge it?

For most car journeys it is not necessary to re-charge on the way. Those who have a charging option at home or at work usually drive off with a full battery. For longer journeys it is clear: Depending on the vehicle’s range and other factors including weather conditions, velocity or topography, charging stops and more time needs to be calculated in. The number of charging stations and charging ports is continuously growing in Austria and all over Europe; in garages, in front of shopping centres, petrol stations, and parking lots. According to the platform ev-charging.com, around 3,500 publicly accessible charging ports up to 22 kW and almost 650 with >22 kW charging output exist in Austria, as of January 2018.⁽⁶⁾

Numerous apps provide information about charging stations and their availability, commercial ones, public ones, as well as ports offered by private persons. They are usually billed per kWh or per time unit or as a mixed form, to create incentives to prevent the charging point from being misused as a parking space.

It is necessary to take into account that different providers use different identification systems. In the framework of the Federal Association Elektromobilität Österreich eleven energy providers offer 1,900 charging ports (as of January2018) which all can – with the support of the Austrian Climate and Energy Fund – be used with the same app or chip card.⁽⁷⁾ Additionally, Smatrics has established a country-wide quick charging grid. Tesla has its own grid for its vehicles. Depending on the vehicle, discharging status of the battery, and the type of charging station, the time for charging can vary significantly. Development is headed towards even higher charging capacity of 150 kW and more; charging then will take only a few minutes.

⁽⁶⁾ Source E-tankstellenfinder.com, accessed 31/01/2018
⁽⁷⁾ Bundesverband Elektromobilität Österreich