Japan To Standardize Electric Vehicle Chargers

JoshuaInNippon writes "Four major Japanese car manufacturers and one power company (Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota, and Tokyo Electric) have teamed up with over 150 business and government entities in Japan to form a group to promote standardization in electric vehicle chargers and charging stations. The group hopes to leverage current Japanese electric vehicle technology and spread standardization throughout the country, as well as aim towards worldwide acceptance of their standardized charger model. In a very Japanese manner, the group has decided to call themselves 'CHAdeMO,' a play on the English words 'charge' and 'move,' as well as a Japanese pun that encourages tea-drinking while waiting the 15+ minutes it will take to charge one's vehicle battery."

Comments

Quick

[ArsonSmith]

We Americans need to come up with our own, incompatible, standard for charging vehicles.

Re:Quick

[Evelas]

and puns, we can't let the Japanese be beating us on puns.

Re:Quick

[sakdoctor]

USB

Re:Quick

[natehoy]

So I can charge my car from my laptop, then? Brilliant!

Re:Quick

[pandrijeczko]

I have a great one for you:

"WITNESS"

or

"Where Is The Nearest Electronics Super Store" on the basis you will need to buy some kind of adapter so the charger fits your car.

Re:Quick

[ashitaka]

Not a chance.

Japanese has many homynyms making puns a breeze.

A family on a TV show had a pet turtle that liked to chase their dachsund around the house.

Turtle in Japanese is "Kame" (pronounced "ka-meh").

The turtle's name was "Diji".

So they had "Diji Kame". (=Digital Camera)

Re:Quick

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

You sickening, worthless, un-American, communist. America should let the free market come up with at least 3 competing, mutually incompatible charging standards. Each with its own DRM system to prevent nimbler third parties from offering cheaper alternatives! Ideally, chargers shouldn't even be interoperable between vehicle lines produced by the same company.

Re:Quick

[CheeseTroll]

And then charge your laptop from the car's 12v outlet!

Re:Quick

[natehoy]

Not at all. We hook up a generator and use the motion of Galileo and Liebniz spinning in their graves for power.

Re:Quick

[commodore64_love]

>>>America should let the free market come up with at least 3 competing, mutually incompatible charging standards

How do you think America came-up with standardized electric plugs today? Or firehose connections? Or timezones? It wasn't via government mandate, but by voluntary association between companies to make their systems compatible.

Re:Quick

[jimbolauski]

The communist way would be much better people waiting in long lines to use the only recharge station because nobody is motivated to innovate except for the threat of the trips to the gulag, I mean reeducation camp, wait no work camp.

Re:Quick

[RulerOf]

America should let the free market come up with at least 3 competing, mutually incompatible charging standards. Each with its own DRM system to prevent nimbler third parties from offering cheaper alternatives!

LG, Apple, and Motorola are all showing tech demos of their chargers next week, with the trade shows being sponsored by Verizon and AT&T. Rumor has it that the LG charger's locking mechanism will break off sometime before you're finished paying your car loan, Apple's charger is a massive dock connector that's already compatible with a huge range of iCar accessories, and Motorola's charger will be covered under warranty, but any rust on the vehicle's underbody will somehow void the warranty on the charger.

You can, of course, buy an insurance policy for your vehicle, but they'll charge extra for a rental while your new model is air-freighted from China over a period of three weeks. You also have to pay for return shipping.

Re:Quick

[tknd]

Now maybe if you moved the workplaces to the suburbs, rather than concentrating them all inside the city, you could find a solution.

Mixed zoning doesn't work because people can't pickup their houses and move when their company flops or they lose their job. So instead they end up driving ridiculous distances and unpredictable paths in order to keep their family together. It is even worse when a married couple needs to have both adults working. Now they need room for 2 cars, take up 2 commutes, and it will be really unlikely for both people live next to work.

Connector style?

[Yvan256]

So, what does the connector look like? I bet it's a tentacle of some sort.

Re:Wrong Solution!

[wowbagger]

"Ask your doctor if umbridge is right for you. Side effects include elevated blood pressure, agitation, sweating, swearing, reddened vision, frothing at the mouth, and in some cases, death."