The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the largest energy firm in Japan, plans to begin installing quick-charge stations for electric vehicles. This plan is not about a small pilot. No, it is about the initial roll-out for some 200 stations to be up and running by March of 2010. And TEPCO doesn’t plan to stop there. 1,000 more stations are planned within three years. No coincidence, this will happen at the same time that Mitsubishi will launch its ‘iMiev’. TEPCO and Mitsubishi have been testing the last few years, but also EVs from Subaru and Nissan as well. According to some sources, 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). TEPCO sees them in, for instance, supermarkets. Yes, indeed. Since electric sharging stations have less strict regulations to follow.

According to J. Soble on the Financial Times online the Japanese postal service, a utility company, the Japanese government and four carmakers are all working towards a future with a lot of electric cars on the road. Next to the expectations of the Mitsubishi MiEV, the Subaru R1e and Nissan-Renault, Japan’s postal service will convert its 21,000 vehicle fleet to run on EV’s. The government is helping build the infrastructure as well: The Kanagawa prefecture, the region adjoining Tokyo, is providing 150 recharging stations in an effort to fulfill the Japanese Government’s announcement that half of the new cars sold in 2020 will be electric.

This move is a clear step towards establishing a dominant design in EV infrastructure. A strategy that needs public-private partnering, consortium forming and –at the right time- really big steps.





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