Tokyo to get 200 quick-charge EV stations with plans for more
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the largest energy firm in Japan, plans to begin installing quick-charge stations for electric vehicles. The initial roll-out calls for some 200 stations to be up and running by March of 2010. TEPCO doesn't plan to stop there, with 1,000 more stations planned within three years. This planned project coincides nicely with the expected launch of the Mitsubishi iMiev, which TEPCO has been extensively testing these last few years, and EVs from Subaru and Nissan as well. These stations will use technology already developed by the energy company which allows an EV to travel 40 kilometers on a five-minute charge and 60 kilometers on a 10-minute charge. Of course, the total available battery capacity and the ability to accept that much power is dependent on the vehicle's on-bard power pack. Each station is said to cost upwards of 4 million yen (that's about $36,570).[Source: Nikkei via Forbes]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
meme 8:08PM (8/13/2008)
That's not very fast. Sounds like 20kW or so, the sort of power you'd feed into a Tesla. The Oahu PosiCharge chargers are 60kW, and they come as big as 250kW.
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kert 9:02PM (8/13/2008)
thats plenty fast to ground any fears of getting stranded in EV with adequate range pumped into batteries.
in engineering, "better" is the eternal enemy of "good enough"
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Paul Sallmen 9:09PM (8/13/2008)
A country that imports virtually all of its natural resources (like Japan) always has to think about efficiency. I can see this is probably the start of something great. I can imagine Japan will have a vast network of electric stations over the next decade. No Exxons to kowtow to. In fact, it's in their vested interest to get off of oil. I can imagine the Mitsubishi iMieV is just the start of many, many more EVs to come. This will also help clear the air of their larger cities. Although I imagine a lot of their air pollution blows over from China. Despite the rather large distance between the two countries, air pollution knows no boundaries. And China has much, much worse air pollution than Japan.
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Ryan Fava 4:56AM (12/18/2008)
Seems interesting.
However I would like to ask one question is TEPCO ready to invest in Europe aswell?
Regards
Ing. Ryan FAva
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