The typical apartment building in Japan features a row of delivery boxes on the first floor for parcel deliveries. These delivery boxes ensure the security of delivered parcels with a PIN or swipe card tied to specific residents. Mitsubishi Motors is working with a leading producer of these boxes, Japan Delivery System (JDS), to apply these principals to electric vehicle charging. The duo has designed and produced a charging unit called the i-Charger that went on sale last week in Japan.
Mitsubishi Motors approached JDS in order to surmount the challenges of tracking power use at EV charging stations. Mitsubishi and JDS realized that apartment managers, like other business owners, could be left to cover the bill for increases in electrical use due to EVs. The i-Charger will be installed within JDS delivery boxes and use the verification process to bill electrical use to specific apartments. As sales volume increases for the i-Charger, Mitsubishi and JDS plan to release a charging unit installed separately from delivery boxes still connected to the verification system.
JDS is slowly unveiling the i-Charger with an initial focus on apartments with EV owners. After the i-Charger demonstrates its value to both tenants and managers, JDS and Mitsubishi will sell units to other apartments in major Japanese cities. These JDS customers will be able to advertise their apartments as green havens where EV owners enjoy convenient charging sources. JDS is expanding its 24-hour telephone support system to handle questions about delivery boxes as well as i-Charger units.
The i-Charger resolves the biggest obstacles facing automakers, business owners and public agencies in developing EV infrastructure. Mitsubishi may be thinking about its own plug-in hybrids and EVs in the JDS collaboration but the ripple effect is better EV infrastructure throughout Japan. Apartment managers and commercial building owners need to surmount lower obstacles in order to accommodate EV owners with products like the i-Charger. The i-Charger and future generations of EV chargers help utilities, city governments and municipal agencies sort out energy costs. As EV chargers become more prevalent, however, it is incumbent on automakers to produce plug-ins and EVs to meet customer demand. The JDS/Mitsubishi partnership sounds great now but if automakers do not produce vehicles like the i-MiEV to use the i-Charger, this partnership will be nothing more than a dead end.
