A report in Japanese business daily The Nikkei has revealed that Toyota will start selling home battery chargers for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles from 2012.
Toyota Home and Toyota Industries will team up to develop the charger and will market it under the Toyota Home brand.
The report suggests that two charger types will be produced – one will be designed to extend from the exterior wall of a home, while the other can be installed in a garage. In addition, the chargers will be compatible with non-Toyota cars and will be priced from several tens of thousands of yen up to 200,000 yen including installation costs.
It is hoped that by 2012 Toyota will sell around 50,000 plug-in hybrid vehicles in Japan, the US and Europe along with several thousand electric cars. Sales of home battery chargers should reach 20,000-30,000 units during the same period with the Japanese government hoping that 5,000 high speed chargers and two million electric vehicle battery chargers will be installed across the country by 2020.
