Japanese car maker Toyota has teamed up with its customer service IT company, Toyota Media Service Corporation, to develop a tool to support home-based charging.
The tool will work with the Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid Vehicle, which is due to be launched next year, as well as other electric vehicles. Drivers can simply connect to the H2V (home-to-vehicle) Manager from a home PC, television or smart phone and set or adjust their charging start time, while also checking household electric power consumption.
In addition, the H2V Manager is able to interrupt electric car charging when household power demand spikes – and then resume charging when there is spare power capacity. This will help to avoid circuit breakers from cutting off their power supply when a large number of home appliances are being used simultaneously.
The Toyota Housing Corporation has outlined plans to sell a line-up of household plug-in hybrid and electric vehicle chargers – and the H2V Manager will be compatible with all these chargers.
The expected price of a H2V Manager will be US$2,045 including installation and tax. It will initially go on sale in Japan in January, 2012. It will be on display at the Tokyo Motor Show from November 30-December 3.
