Great news for Japanese owners of electric cars like the Mitsubishi i-MiEV and Nissan Leaf. Oil companies JX Nippon Oil, Idemitsu Kosan Co, Cosmo Oil Co. and Showa Shell Sekiyu KK are teaming up to test a fixed-fee EV charging service at their gas stations. 27 stations will be involved in Tokyo and Kanagawa Prefecture starting in the first quarter of 2012.
The four companies have created what they call an “EV Service Station Network” where members can charge their plug-in EVs at a conventional petrol station alongside internal combustion engine powered cars.
Of the four, JX Nippon Oil currently has the most participating stations, and the company is looking at a monthly fee of ¥3,000 (RM122 at current exchange rates) for individuals and corporate card holders. Pay the fee and one can recharge their EV at any participating station.
Quick charging an EV will take considerably longer than a regular car, though, so the companies will offer “additional services” for EV chargers. This could probably be drinks, reading material and WIFI, like in service centres.
This is what we need to neutralise what the industry calls “range anxiety” in the acceptance of battery powered vehicles. But for non heavy users, a 100 km real world range will be enough to take one to work and back, in one single charge. Treat the EV like your power hungry smartphone and make a habit of charging it every night and you should be fine.
Closer to home, Mitsubishi Motors Malaysia has registered their first i-MiEV for awareness purposes and Edaran Tan Chong Motor will be launching a pilot program next year that offers experimental drives to Government bodies, members of the media as well as the public. Stay tuned for more updates on the green front!
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any japanese mamasan massage service in the station while waiting for charging would be freaking awesome..
Hey, Please charge my dick.
my car runs for about 200~220km per week, which means i only need to charge twice per week w00ta~! actually the new prius phev has an electric-only mode that can run for about 25km purely on electric, and that’s more than enough for me per day XD
I don’t understand why carmakers aren’t working hard to make hydrogen fuel cells cars a reality (other than Honda & the FCX). Hydrogen is an abundant chemical element and its emission is water!
Electric cars on the other hand does have emission – from the generation of electricity to charge them, especially in countries where coal is the primary power generation source!
How do you mass produce hydrogen?
A) Electrolysis of water – Using electricity, it is easy to split water molecules to create pure hydrogen and oxygen. One big advantage of this process is that you can do it anywhere. For example, you could have a box in your garage producing hydrogen from tap water, and you could fuel your car with that hydrogen.
– Which, you are using electricity where “especially in countries where coal is the primary power generation source!”
B) Reforming fossil fuels – Oil and natural gas contain hydrocarbons — molecules consisting of hydrogen and carbon. Using a device called a fuel processor or a reformer, you can split the hydrogen off the carbon in a hydrocarbon relatively easily and then use the hydrogen. You discard the leftover carbon to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
– Which.. hmm.. food for thoughts.
Hydrogen is good but cost+production still very high cost plus stability issue need to resolve, it take time’s and they took around 10 years++ to optimized Hybrid or EV vehicle. At least use EV or Hybrid is a good start though, emission are much more efficient compare to burning in car engine :D
Hydrogen is abundant in the universe but you can’t drill for hydrogen. On earth, it’s just an energy carrier, which means that you have to get hydrogen from somewhere such as thermal cracking or reforming from hydrocarbon based fuel (cheapest method now by the way) or from electrolysis, which consume electricity and the mix of power generation in most countries still based on fossil fuel.
There is no silver bullet solution for sustainable mobility. Most likely in the near term it will combination of different technologies to address different needs. For example, electric car is more than sufficient for daily commuting and hybrids are better for long distance driving. There are still alot more that we can do with the old faithful internal combustion engine to squeeze more miles from a gallon of fuel… For example; look at trend of downsizing the engine and turbocharging, or use of Atkinson cycle, some people are looking at 6-stroke cycle engine, HCCI (diesel like combustion efficiency for petrol engine), etc. You can ride cows to work too if you are too worried about tail pipe emissions… but cows also produce alot of greenhouse gas emissions.
The cost is high and there are a lot of problems to solve at the moment. A green way of getting the Hydrogen (H2) and a safe way to store it.
because ter r working on Hydrogen Power Generator to replace traditional power station.
Additional services??? U mean Hitomi Tanaka will be serving me???
No problem charging for us staying in terrace houses but what about those in condominiums? Hybrid is still the better option. EV can only work for certain segments.
In Malaysia? They can’t even approve the electric bike! Shameful!
Electric bike is very promising but government of CanLand cannot understand what is that.
I love the Honda Jazz EV, want one for a city car in the future :)…..
A better solution to EV problem is to install power plug at every car parks e.g mall, office. Simply park your car, put money into the machine slot for the amount of required charging time, then plug into your car. After finished shopping/work, then unplug the cable and drive your car away. Most of the EV car can take standard household plug right? Pretty much the same like what we did for some of our parking system e.g putting money for the parking meter for the amount of parking time required. The charging station should be catered for those who need rapid charging only.
some states in USA also promoting EV station test run already.
Please watch the movie “The ides of March” and you will see the USA direction…
I am just wondering…how long to recharge? 2 hours??? Good excuse to go out for long lunch…hehe…call your boss…”Boss, my car still charging, i cannot come back to the office!”
Boss: “Yeah right, your car can still run for 100km. Get back here NOW….!!!”
I wonder why they can’t make it run on nuclear power. We won’t need to refuel at least for the next decade or so.
And everytime you crash, you have a fukushima disaster