The global market for electric vehicles is growing and with advancements in technology it's only a matter of time before these vehicles start to gain traction in South Africa.

Listen to this article 6 min Listen to this article 6 min Data from the Automotive Business Council's November new car sales dashboard show that year-to-date sales to the end of October were as follows: electric and hybrid car sales increased by 13% year-on-year, with 1,130 electric cars, 533 plug-in hybrid cars and 10,739 traditional hybrid cars sold.

We're all familiar with the idea of an electric vehicle (EV): it's a car that typically is driven by an electric motor powered by a lithium-ion battery instead of an internal combustion engine powered by a traditional lead-acid battery. However, there are finer details to EV batteries that you may not be aware of.

How to keep your battery at its optimum

Once a week is a good benchmark for how often EVs typically need to be charged if you drive for two hours a day, according to Volvo sales executive Marcus Mento. When it's time to charge, there are two kinds of charging stations. AC charging stations, called "slow charge" stations, take several hours to charge an EV, while DC charging stations -- "fast charge" stations -- push out more kilowatts. Fast charging is convenient; but for the sake of the...