SolarCity, the company that leases solar panels and that has recently been funded by Google with $280 million, now announces that it will sell electric car chargers that will be able to charge a Nissan Leaf to 80 percent in three hours.
Moreover, if you’re already a SolarCity customer, you’ll get a discount for your purchase and have the charger for $1,500. Nevertheless, the company will sell the charger to anyone interested:
“We’ll install an electric vehicle charging station whether they’re a solar customer or not,” SolarCity spokesperson Johnathan Bass told VentureBeat. “But if you’re a solar customer it delivers a lot of additional economic benefit.”
This is a “Level 2” charger, but SolarCity also has plans to unveil a slower Level 1 and another one that will use 480 volts to charge the cars much quicker (probably at the expense of battery lifetime).
I guess the 480 volts EV charger will probably be most welcome in Europe, since here there standard is already 240 volts, so this version’s use is limited to the U.S. boundaries.
