Installed by electric vehicle specialist GreenWay, the 15 charging points span a 250-mile route between the west and east of Slovakia, and can provide an 80% charge in around half an hour.

The charging costs will total €10 or roughly a quarter of the value of the diesel used on an equivalent journey. GreenWay, which leases electric converted vans with battery swap capability to fleet customers, will offer free charging for vehicles registered in Slovakia by the end of August 2014.

It forms part of the government’s proposals to have one charging station per 37 miles of the country’s roads by 2020, under its soon to be approved Development Strategy of Electromobility.

Richard Raši, mayor of Košice, said: ‘Making this route available is indeed an exceptional moment since electromobility will finally be able to operate nationwide without restrictions, and in doing so it pulls down one of the imaginary boundaries between the west and east of the Slovak Republic.’

Mayor of Bratislava Milan Ftáčnik added: ‘In Bratislava in the previous autumn we adopted the memorandum on support for electromobility as well as a number of support measures to help introduce electromobility into daily life within Bratislava.’