Wednesday, July 7, 2010

JFE unveils the 3-minute electric car charge

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Thirty minutes used to be the gold standard when it came to charging electric car batteries. But JFE Engineering, a Japanese energy technology company, has unveiled a way to recharge batteries in one-tenth of that time.

In only three minutes, the company claims that it can recharge a battery up to 50 percent of its capacity, and in five minutes recharge the battery up to 80 percent, according to an article in CrunchGear.

The Mitsubishi iMiev had a 50-mile range after a five-minute charge in testing.

In contrast, the Nissan Leaf using 440-volt fast-charging stations takes 26 minutes to achieve an 80 percent charge of its battery. London-based Chargemaster announced the production of the Chargemaster FastCharge, which can recharge an electric car in 2.5 hours, down from the typical six hours using a standard charger.

JFE's new technology should be available in Japan by March 2011.

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