Electric Vehicles Getting 10 Minute Chargers, But…

It seems that electric vehicles have been sluggish to come to market, to say the least, with interest in the innovation substantial but no affordable options for environmentally conscious consumers to begin unshackling themselves from gas pumps. (For instance, Nissan’s Leaf costs between $35-40,000 and few are available nationwide.)

Sunsetting a technology used by everyone, everywhere is a difficult prospect, and a huge hurdle in getting electric cars to be more widely palatable. Plus, the lengthy time required for a proper charge means that using the technology could seem prohibitive- but that could change.

The good news is that this week Nissan announced that the company is developing a charging station for electric vehicles that can fully charge a car’s battery in just 10 minutes- down from the currently discouraging eight hours. According to Yahoo, new technology has made it so that the process can be truncated significantly:

Researchers at at Kansai University in Japan claim that the breakthrough in this charging method comes from swapping out the electrode utilizing carbon inside a capacitor to an electrode using tungsten oxide and vanadium oxide.

There is a downside, however- the technology is expected to be about a decade away from market, although the situation is improving. Nissan is “aggressively supporting” technology that will charge batteries to about 80% capacity in 30 minutes or so, and electric car charging stations are slowly but surely popping up in the US as more consumers consider the technology as an alternative to high gas bills. Car companies aren’t the only ones looking at making the technology more accessible to consumers- Walgreens is adding 800 electric car charging stations nationwide for customers to utilize.

Have you considered replacing your car with an electric vehicle?