Nissan to Release Faster-Charging Electric Car

I’ve always argued that the idea of the electric car is great in theory. The only problem I have with electric cars (and hybrids, to an extent) is that they take a comically long time to charge. In fact, the Nissan Leaf takes eight hours to obtain a full charge, making it a miserable vehicle to take… well, anywhere that’s further than four hours from your house.

Nissan seems to recognize this and has announced that with the 2012 Nissan Leaf the charger will be higher than the current 3.3kW that the 2011 Leaf uses. Moreover, current Leaf owners will be able to retrofit their vehicles with the new charger.

It’s a start. At present the Ford Focus Electric can charge itself in about four hours, but it’s a long ways out from matching petroleum vehicles and their three-minute refill times.

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