The growing popularity of electric vehicles makes it difficult to remember when the environmentally friendly automobiles were considered appropriate solely for short local trips.

Today, an increasing awareness of the connection between cars and climate change, coupled with a growing number of electric car charging stations is inspiring a surge in electric car use around the world.

Europe is the current frontrunner in the global race to increase electric car use, with Norway leading the charge. Having stated that they plan to eliminate using all fossil fuel powered vehicles by 2025, the Scandinavian country offers residents an array of incentives designed to make the switch to electric vehicles easy.

While Europe is embracing electric vehicles, the current world leader for electric car use is China. With their sights set on the future, China is focused on achieving their reported goal of deploying 5 million electric vehicles by 2020. To date, there are approximately 600,000 electric vehicles on the road in China.

The surge in electric car use has prompted the rapid installation of electric car charging stations worldwide. Once limited to a radius of approximately 100 miles per charge, some new generations of electric vehicles are promising that a full charge will last for approximately 200 miles.

In addition to the increased power of electric vehicle charges, electric car charging stations are also improving. A full charge, which can take approximately eight hours, can now be accomplished in little over 15 minutes by using quick charging stations.

While there are still challenges, such as under supported power grids, obvious next steps will be for countries to enhance their power grid to prevent brownouts due to the high volume of people charging vehicles.

Read more: Sparta Capital