Japanese automaker Nissan and Hitachi subsidiary announce that they plan to roll out a system to keep elevators running through electric vehicles. These elevators will be able to run despite a blackout by drawing power from the batteries of EVs.
Few cars today are capable of bi-directional charging, where vehicles can become a power source for homes, or feed energy back into the grid, though carmakers such as Ford Motor Co and Renault SA are among those jumping on the bandwagon. In what appears to be an early attempt in earthquake-prone Japan to make wider use of EV batteries, Nissan and Hitachi Building Systems Co Ltd are focused on keeping elevators running when the power supply is disrupted.
During a pilot project unveiled on Friday, the firms said they had kept an elevator with a capacity for nine people running at slow speed for 10 hours by drawing power from the battery of a Sakura, a fully electric micro “kei” car made by Nissan. The V2X system uses the CHAdeMO charging standard supported by Nissan, a Hitachi Building Systems executive said. That allows it to also draw power from larger Nissan EVs, such as the Ariya and Leaf models.
EVs
“The V2X system uses the CHAdeMO charging standard supported by Nissan,” said a Hitachi Building Systems executive. The system allows it to also attract energy from larger Nissan EVs, such as the Ariya and Leaf models. Tatsunori Takahashi, director of Hitachi Building Systems’ domestic business management division, hopes the company will start providing the system for apartment buildings starting April’s financial year.
Nissan is also considering the introduction of a mid-size electric pickup truck similar to its Frontier for US consumers. It is worth noting that the automaker took ten years to release its second electric vehicle after launching the Leaf in 2011. Hence, this prospective truck may take a while before its release. The company’s electric crossover, the Nissan Ariya, has been postponed multiple times, but it appears that the company wants to release more EVs since the demand for clean-energy cars is rising. The Japanese carmaker revealed its intentions to invest $500 million in its Canton Vehicle Assembly factory in Mississippi in February 2022 in order to turn it into a hub for US manufacturing. The plan includes two brand-new, all-electric cars. Electric pickup trucks are presently the trendiest and most sought-after EVs available on the market due to the spectacular debuts of Rivian, Ford, and GMC. More automakers are now joining the bandwagon.