Slashdot Mirror
Japan Now Has More Car Charging Points Than Gas Stations
An anonymous reader writes: One of the biggest impediments to getting more electric cars on the road is the lack of charging infrastructure. When there's a gas station every other mile and you have to struggle to find a charging station, it's difficult to make a case for convenience and reliability. But this is changing, particularly in smaller, more technologically advanced countries like Japan. Nissan found that there are now about 40,000 charging points in Japan, compared to about 34,000 gas stations. Granted, not all of those charging spots are available to the public — some are in people's homes. But it shows the infrastructure is making real gains. Also, the article suggests an Airbnb-like system may crop up for people to utilize each other's charging stations. It adds, "As charging stations become more common, electric-car support services are also emerging. Open Charge Map, for example, operates an online listing of public charging points worldwide. A mobile app combines the data with GPS technology to guide drivers to the nearest site."
At a gas station it doesn't take you long to fill your tamk. Charging an electric vehicle takes a lot longer so theres less turnover.
(Perhaps even all day, or at least all 8 hrs of a shift)
It takes 1 minute, 30 seconds.
A electric charging "gas station" could just replace the batteries in cars and charge its pool of batteries independent of the cars.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
*Very* few people commute on the shinkansen in Japan, and the distances you're talking about would run around $200 USD per day. I can't think of a single person I knew during my 10 years living in the country who commuted on the shinkansen. If such a commute became necessary a company would just foot the bill for a small apartment and relocate the employee.
Commuting by car is what is actually rare in Japan. In such an urbanized country, with such a robust public transport system, nearly everyone takes the train, or the subway, or the bus. Only in the boondocks do you find the majority of people commuting by car.
Two hour commutes on NORMAL trains, however, are not rare.