One of the major technical challenges in Lithium-ion battery vehicles is the long charging hours which presents a commercial barrier. To charge a 15KWh battery, almost 10 hours is required by plugging into an outlet of 120 volts.
As per the BCG report, the problem with time can be reduced significantly by using sophisticated charging terminals in order to employ fast charging methods. It has been concluded that a commercial three-phase charging station would take as little as 20 minutes time to compare to charging in a 240-volt outlet.
The charging station comes at an additional cost and weight with an additional cooling system. The battery swap method is promising to provide a full charge within three minutes.
It is expected that by 2020, fully evolved electric vehicles with a battery swap method or different recharging techniques can be limited to commercial fleets or commuter cars with a specified or predefined range in order to combat the major obstacle.