China's largest electric car charging station opens in Beijing

China's largest electric vehicle (EV) charging and battery swapping station has been put into operation in Beijing, sources with the city's power supply authorities said Sunday.

Gaoantun charging station, located in the eastern Beijing district of Chaoyang, has been installed with more than 10 types of EV charging or battery swapping machines, covering all charging modes that are available in China.

The station can charge up to eight vehicles simultaneously and it takes only four to six minutes to swap a battery of an EV.

The charging station has been verified by experts from Beijing New Energy Vehicle Association.

Beijing is striving to build a new energy vehicle grid as part of the nation's plan to usher in more energy-saving and environmentally friendly vehicles.

Beijing hopes to build a three-level EV charging and battery swapping network that consists of six large-scale concentrated charging stations, 250 charging and battery swapping stations and 210 small-sized delivery stations by the end of 2015.

So far, Beijing has completed construction of 12 charging and battery swapping stations and 274 charging posts.

Beijing was chosen as one of the 25 pilot cities in China for the utilization of new-energy vehicles.

China plans to have more than 500,000 electric, hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles on the road by 2015 and 5 million by 2020.