Unlike the majority of gas stations in Japan however, the 40,000 electric car charging points quoted by Nissan includes ones in private homes, causing some critics to cry foul. After all, if a charging station is hidden in a privately-owned garage, it isn’t easily accessible to the public.
Yet while we understand that criticism — and it’s why we used an asterisk in our headline — the rise of charger-sharing sites like PlugShare.com means that more people than ever before are offering their private charging station for others to use, either as an altruistic gesture or for cold, hard cash. Moreover, it’s possible to argue that because privately-owned charging stations are enabling owners to drive their cars without visiting public charging stations, they’re providing just as valid a service to everyday drivers as publicly-assessable, higher-powered ones.
But while electric car charging stations may now be far more common in Japan than a gas station, the numbers of electric cars on the roads of Japan still represent a tiny proportion of the total cars registered.
It includes public and private charging spots but the article does raise some good points about 'charge spot pooling' and reducing the dependency on petrol stations. Interesting times ahead!