To get more EVs on the road， scientists are working to charge a car in the same time that it takes to fuel up at a gas station.

为了让更多电动汽车上路，科学家们正努力使汽车充电时间与在加油站加油花费的时间相同。

Electric vehicles are quieter， easier to repair and maintain， and far better for the environment than traditional internal combustion cars. Still， numbers of EVs on the road are trailing behind the cars they’re supposed to replace， in part due to charging times.

与传统内燃机汽车相比，电动汽车噪音更小、更易修理和维护，且对环境的危害要小得多。然而，上路电动汽车数量却落后于它们本该取代的内燃机汽车，部分原因就在于充电时间。

While refueling a gas tank only takes a few minutes， charging an EV takes a lot longer. Right now， the fastest chargers available to consumers， sometimes called Level 3 chargers， can charge a vehicle battery to 80 percent in as quickly as 20 minutes. But the most available （and affordable） chargers are far slower. Level 2 chargers take several hours to charge a vehicle， and Level 1 chargers—which plug into a typical home outlet—can take more than two days.

油箱加油只需几分钟，而电动汽车充电花的时间要长得多。目前，可供消费者使用的最快的充电桩（有时也叫三级充电桩）在20分钟内就能使汽车电池电量达到80%。然而，最常见（也最具性价比）的充电桩要慢得多。使用二级充电桩充电需要数小时，而连接家庭电源插座的一级充电桩所需时间可能超过两天。

These slow charging speeds have only exacerbated “range anxiety”—the concern that batteries could run out of charge on the road. That， and the fact that demand for EVs outpaces the ability of car manufacturers to make them， threatens to slow down the road to electrification.

缓慢的充电速度只会加剧“里程焦虑”——即对行车途中电池电量可能耗尽的担忧。这种忧虑，加上消费者对电动汽车的需求超过汽车制造商的生产能力这一事实，可能会拖慢汽车电动化的进程。

Scientists， including those at universities， at major electric vehicle manufacturers and at the Department of Energy， think that EVs could power up more quickly if we push the science of charging to its limits. They argue that tweaking the internal chemistry of EV batteries and the design of charging cables can help eliminate this major barrier to adoption. The challenge is speeding up charging without compromising on safety or the long-term life of the battery. The goal is to get as close as possible to the time it takes to refuel an internal combustion vehicle.

就职于包括大学、主要电动汽车制造厂商和能源部在内的科学家们都认为，如果将充电的科学发展到极致，电动汽车的充电速度可以更快。他们表示，稍稍改进电动汽车电池的内部化学特性和充电电缆的设计，有助于消除电动汽车推广的这一重大阻碍。难处是要在不影响安全性和电池长期寿命的前提下提高充电速度。而目标在于尽可能使电动汽车的充电时长接近内燃机汽车的加油时长。

The fundamental challenge of charging lies in batteries’ electrochemistry. Batteries are designed with two electrodes： an anode and a cathode. Lithium ions flow between these two components. When a battery is discharging and powering a car， lithium ions travel from the anode to the cathode， which produces free electrons and electric charge. When the vehicle is charging， the reverse happens， and the lithium ions are pushed back toward the anode.

最根本的难点在于电池的电化学特性。