Nissan announces 49kw quick charger (Japan).

http://green.autoblog.com/2010/05/21/nissan-announces-49-kw-quick-charger-for-evs/

Looks like they're using a step-up transformer to give the 500v.

I came here to post this and here it is already

So roughly 10% of Nissan dealers in Japan will have quick charging facilities. I wonder if we'll see similar numbers here. I suspect, however, that the Nissan dealerships in Japan are company-owned...

Under $20k, so it's not a massive amount of money. Plus, with the step-up transformer, it appears you wouldn't have to have the 480v service, which I understand from another thread is VERY expensive to get installed.

You'd still need an extra 300 amps or so of electrical capacity @ 230V... But yes, this is very encouraging.

Yes, but it still requires 3 phase power, the only advantage would be if the dealer only had 120/208V service, as opposed to a 480V service. You still can't use this "at home"

BTW, 49KW @ 208V AC = 235AMPs

a commercial 120/208V Y service is typically 300A or 400A, so it takes most of the power available to run this beast.

"In preparation for the December launch of its Leaf EV, Nissan has developed its own electric vehicle charge station that will be installed at all of its dealers in Japan.

There will actually be two different chargers available – a standard single-phase 200 volt version will be available at all 2,200 dealers, while a 49 kilowatt fast charger will be installed at about 200 dealers. The goal is to have quick chargers available to customers within a 25 mile radius everywhere in Japan.

The quick charger should be able to charge the 24 kilowatt-hour Leaf battery in about 30 minutes. It takes a three-phase 200 volt AC input and steps it up to as much as 500 volts of direct current with 125 amps. The Nissan developed charger starts at $16,200 for the base version, but Nissan is also offering a variant for hot weather use that adds a cooling system for $19,000, as well as a heated cold weather model for $17,000. Check out the official press release after the jump for more info."

I wonder what would happen if a vandal stuck a wad of steel wool in the plug and you connected it to your car without noticing. Maybe it would interfere with the signal and not apply the juice.

The steel wool would be no match for the large current/voltage, it would burn up in milliseconds, also the tolerances are tight on the connectors male/female mating, I doubt you could get it inserted with any signifigant debris in it.

Nissan Plans on Selling an Inexpensive, Under 30-Minute Fast Charging Station in the U.S.

http://gas2.org/2010/05/27/nissan-plans-on-selling-an-inexpensive-under-30-minute-fast-charging-station-in-the-u-s/#more-8206

NC: The other question I had is, if you went back a year and did an internet search on articles that came up a year ago, everybody would say these DC fast chargers are going to be 60-100,000 bucks. And now you guys come out with this one that — in Japan — is selling for $17,000, which is cheaper than even some of the level 2 chargers. I’m just wondering, you know, how? How does that happen? I don’t understand, you guys have this incredibly cheap battery pack and you have this incredibly cheap fast charger. And I’m just wondering, “What is going on over at Nissan”? You’re beating all these predictions by miles.

MP: We have a very strong team of cost engineers who went back and basically took apart the DC fast charger and asked “How can we find ways to do this less expensively and faster?” And before, the market was for almost hand built charging stations. You know, it’s like a custom built car; it costs a lot of money. All of a sudden you start talking about scale, you start talking about manufacturing efficiencies, and you go through, from a cost engineering standpoint and say “Okay, why are you doing it this way if you can do it that way?” and just work it through and you come up with the cost reduction that we have. And we’re not done.

Click to expand...

We have a quick charger just 18 minutes from my house. First public quick charger in the US!

http://evnut.com/vaca_dc_fast_charger.html

Looks like Nissan is expanding its low-cost quick chargers to the UK:
http://www.am-online.com/news/story/?nID=42902853

At launch, Nissan will have 40 Level 3 chargers throughout the country at dealerships at launch, 75 in 2011 and 120 in 2012... which given the size of the UK, would easily connect the country with fairly high density. Presumably, like in Japan, these will be available to LEAF owners. In a 94,000 square mile country 40 chargers spread throughout the country would average ~48 miles apart, 75 averages ~35 miles apart, 120 averages ~28 miles apart... and that is just counting Nissan dealers.

The article states the the fast-chargers will cost ~£15,000 installed, which works out to about $22,500.

Hopefully, once we settle on a charger standard here, Nissan will plan a similar rollout in the US. Combined with publically-funded Level 3 chargers, it could connect the country fairly quickly. I think it would be kind of fun to "dealer hop" on road trips...

darelldd said:

We have a quick charger just 18 minutes from my house. First public quick charger in the US!

http://evnut.com/vaca_dc_fast_charger.html

Click to expand...

That is great! I noticed it has a TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company logo. Very great, along with the Eaton logo....It is great to see these larger companies continue on these projects. Super.

*cough* http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/06/north-americas-first-public-use-quick-charge-station-opens-in-p/ *cough*

...and it's about 12 minutes from my house...

BTW Darell, your website is awesome!