Cars and Trees

With Better Place considering seriously the option of on-the-fly recharging, through EV recharging stations, Renault-Nissan announces that they will too use the same recharging system for the vehicles they will release soon.

Of course, there will be several methods of recharging, among which is the good-old socket plugging, with a recharging time of 8 hours, while swapping the battery only lasts less than 3 minutes. There is also a quick-recharging option of 20 minutes, that will restore 80 percent of the battery’s capacity.

One thing is most interesting here, though. If until now Priuses and other electric vehicles were expensive due to their battery cost, Nissan-Renault’s new project looks at the problem in a different angle: they will only lease the batteries, and you’ll own just the car, and that will decrease the car’s price dramatically, putting you at safe place of risks involving battery malfunction costs. I think these insurances will also be recovered from the fees applied to the service, but it’s still not as hard to pay a subscription than paying the whole sum at once.

Renault’s first electric car released in Europe will be a version of Kangoo, ready for the market in 2011. So, let’s wait a little – electrification is on its way.