Mitsubishi Starts Solar Powered Fueling Station In North America

Mitsubishi motors on Thursday announced the launch of its solar powered electric fuelling station in Cyprus, North America. This may be seen as a change in trend in the fueling of electric vehicles. Some countries in European Union especially Ireland and Britain announced a complete changeover from the conventional gasoline power stations to electric power stations. We had earlier reported that #-Link-Snipped-# for its people to get a hand on an environment friendly concept.  Mitsubishi Motors North America (M.M.N.A) said that the one by it is not a test fueling station. On the contrary, it is a commercial one and more may be expected to roll out.

#-Link-Snipped-#The recently opened solar power station for electric vehicles situated in Mitsubishi's headquarter city Cyprus has four fueling ports. Out of which two are 110 volts, one is 220 volts and one is a CHAdeMO quick charger. There are 96 solar arrays in this station of 175 W capacities each. The important aspect of this charging station is that any compatible i-MiEV can be charged 80% of its capacity in just 25 minutes. This sounds interesting because it is a conventional thinking that full charging requires around 8 hours. Even a 20 minutes charge can make your car carry you for more than 40 miles. Even the one in Ireland is of the same kind. The one by Mitsubishi will be available for utilization to common public free of cost.

The $130,000 charging station is installed with the help of Rogers Electric. The DC charger was produced by Eaton Corp. for $65,000 while the station was designed by California Green designs. The investment in a fueling station gives an impression that the automobile giant and the automobile world as a whole is venturing out heavily in electric vehicle market. Moreover the investment would give a positive message to customers that the electric vehicles are on the way to give a tough competition to the conventional gasoline vehicles. As gasoline becomes dearer the electric fueling stations that too the solar powered ones would mean an environment friendly transition to EVs.

Mitsubishi has recently announced an all time cheaper version of its i-MiEV to be rolled in 2012. It will be around 35% cheaper than the one launched in 2011. The cost reductions are again achieved due to a mass production of batteries, which again indicates the importance of the fueling power stations. We can still expect that Nissan too comes out with some strategy to woo its customers and introduce them to a new thing just like Mitsubishi.

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