Energy sector set up “Research Association for Hydrogen Infrastructure Building”

Recently, in Japan, there were two large moves toward the next generation vehicles.
1) Energy sector set up “Research Association for Hydrogen Infrastructure Building” (FCV: fuel cell vehicle)
2) Four big companies set up “Rapid Charger Infrastructure Promotion Council” (EV: electric vehicle)

1) Energy sector set up “Research Association for Hydrogen Infrastructure Building”
Strong social demand impelled the Japanese energy sector to set up the research association for developing basic technologies for deploying the hydrogen infrastructure for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Japanese automakers will also participate in the research association.
Objective of the research association is to develop technologies of hydrogen extraction and transport, maintenance, and management of hydrogen utilization, and others for the purpose of deploying the hydrogen infrastructure for full-fledge spread of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
Large cost taken for building the hydrogen infrastructure urges those companies in the industrial sector to take an action to establish the research association.
About 700 oku-yen will be spent till 2015. * 1 oku-yen = 100,000,000 yen
Several tens of hydrogen stations will be built in the areas of big cities in Japan.
A large scale demonstration test will start within this year by using those stations. Target price of hydrogen supplied to FCV is comparable with the current oil price.
(Prepared based on some Japanese medias)

2) Four big companies set up “Rapid Charger Infrastructure Promotion Council”
Mitsubishi, Subaru, NISSAN, and TEPCO are plan to establish “Rapid Charger Infrastructure Promotion Council (tentative)” within this year.
Those companies will invite other companies to join the council.
[Other companies: e.g., battery charger manufacturers, and battery charger service providers]
Currently, those auto-manufacturers have respectively developed the rapid chargers in cooperation with TEPCO, and currently employ those developed chargers of which specifications are different from one another.
To achieve a full-fledge spread of EVs, it is essential to unify those different specifications.
(Source: http://car.nikkei.co.jp/release/article.aspx?id=227531)

* Mitsubishi and Subaru: launched EVs on this July
* NISSAN: will launch EVs next year, price of the EV is about 2/3 of the current EV sold by other companies.