To provide a method and equipment for constant-current and constant- voltage charging for charging a plurality of lithium ion or lead batteries to a usable state in a short time.

Four lithium ion batteries CH-1-CH-4 to be charged are set in a terminal section 3, and then a charging time for one battery is set for one hour by a switching time setting circuit 8. Under this condition, when only the switching circuit SW-1 is turned on to charge the lithium ion battery CH-1, the battery CH-1 is rapidly charged by constant-current charging in an initial stage of charging and, after the passage of a specified period of time, the battery becomes charged about 85% of full charging. The switching circuit is switched successively from SW-1 to SW-2 and then from SW-2 to SW-3 and so on, and thus the remaining lithium ion batteries CH-2-CH-4 are charged successively, each for about 40% of the time required for full charging. As a result, the four lithium batteries can be charged to about 85%.