LAHORE: Pakistan’s first electric charging station – BMW ChargeNow – for hybrid cars was inaugurated at Emporium Mall on Tuesday. The charging station is the first of its kind in Pakistan – or for that matter, in the entire Middle East. The station will be linked with the ChargeNow network – a service from BMW aimed at a charging network on a global scale. Globally, there are three standard charging systems: CHAdeMO for the Asian origin, SuperCharger for Tesla motors and the Combined Charging Standard (CCS) – preferred by the German and American manufacturers. For quite some time, the country has witnessed an increasing number of electric cars – although not fully electric – but hybrids. The concept of ‘the electric car’ was a new phenomenon quickly accepted on a global level – something Pakistan is still slow at.