Japanese Gas Stations Begin to Offer EV Charging Services

With internal combustion-engined cars, whether they use gasoline or diesel, things are pretty simple: when you're low on fuel, you just drive up to a gas station and voila; fill up your car and continue your trip. Electric vehicles are a different matter, though, and the ideal solution would be an EV-equivalent of the gas station.
And now, four Japanese oil wholesalers including Cosmo Oil, Idemitsu Kosan, JC Nippon Oil and Showa Shell Sekiyu KK, announced that they will do just that: they will install 27 charging stations in select gas stations between Tokyo and Kanagawa in the first three months of 2012.
While 27 charging points is certainly a start, it's not that impressive – especially considering the number of plug-in vehicles companies expect to sell in Japan.
The actual novelty in this idea is that customers will not pay according to the electricity used for charging their vehicle, like conventional car owners do for the gas/diesel poured into their tanks. Instead, the “EV Service Station Network”, as it is called, will charge a fixed monthly price of 3,000 yen (US$38.62) for unlimited charges in any of the network’s 27 stations.