Under the lead of an organization affiliated with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Tokyo Electric Power Company is working out next-gen car battery norms. It has developed a specification for high-voltage DC automotive fast charging using a JARI Level 3 DC connector, and formed the CHΛdeMO (stands for Charge and Move) association with Japanese automakers Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru and Toyota to promote it. Although you may be convinced that driving an electric car is eco-friendlier than a conventional one because of the low-level of CO2 expelled, I suggest that you think twice.
Battery industry is a large source of pollution in itself and recycling will pose serious environmental threats with lithium as a new source of cancers and permanent neurological damage in case of severe poisoning. Lithium ion batteries used in watches and gadgets are not always recycled properly but we are taking it to a next level with car batteries. A lot of so-called “green technologies” are based on using highly toxic elements like arsenic in semiconductors and the recycling is never really considered in the PLM (think of what becomes of outdated solar panels for instance). Electric powered cars are in fact nuclear cars, but so are electric appliances in our homes, so where is the problem? In countries like Japan, fossil fuels and renewable energies are sufficient to power the country, even without saving much in this wasteful nation of ever-running empty bullet trains and all night long lit up cities. If Japan was to use only nuclear cars, the demand for more energy would be so great that new nuclear plants would have to be built and old ones put back in operation. The amount of electric power for a car is much higher than to lit up your typical living room neon light: how many domestic appliances require 62,500 W of high-voltage DC current to charge? This is what CHΛdeMO delivers to nuclear cars made by Mitsubishi (i MiEV and Citroën C-ZERO in France, which is quite ironic since Mitsubishi also made ZERO fighter planes for kamikaze pilots during WWII – a practical joke by Mitsubishi marketing department to their French colleagues?), Nissan (several models including Leaf with Renault partnership) and Subaru (Stella).
As a summary, Lithium battery production is environmentally harmful, using them when you drive your car is the worse part because of significant increased nuclear power consumption and their recycling is a new kind of massive pollution ahead. The whole product life cycle is ecologically damaging.
TEPCO participation in the CHΛdeMO association makes perfect business sense. Ironically, CHΛdeMO, also spelled CHAdeMO (an abbreviation of “CHArge de MOve”, equivalent to “charge for moving”), is a pun for O cha demo ikaga desuka in Japanese, meaning “How about some tea” (while charging) in English – knowing that Japanese green tea was tested radio-positive in Shizuoka prefecture, we could politely answer Kekko desu, meaning “Thank you but no thank you”.
Faced to international competition, especially from South Korea, to a yen exchange rate that damage exports, to a dwindling domestic consumption combined with a oversaturated domestic market, Japanese automobile makers’ main hope is to regain leadership through innovative products such as these nuclear cars – so there is no backing up from this strategic policy, which means that they are bound to TEPCO for at least the next decade. Japanese media are subjected to this consortium: for instance Yomiuri Shimbun mainstream newspaper founder has been an active nuclear power supporter, is in some way partly responsible of the fate of Fukushima victims, and will never disavow TEPCO. Toyota represents a third of advertising budget in media so there is little chance that any negative press be published against nuclear cars.
“Green technologies” are often a marketing term to promote innovative and not so environmental friendly technologies, which has eventually a negative impact on the end-user. In another post, we showed that these companies are not concerned with their customers’ health (see further reading on SurvivalJapan below). On a personal level, I recommend boycotting any product affiliated, owned or developed in partnership with TEPCO.
Tokyo Electric Power Company has developed patented technology and a specification for high-voltage (up to 500 V DC) high-current (125 A) automotive fast charging via a JARI DC fast charge connector. It appears this is the basis for the CHAdeMO protocol.The connector is specified by the JEVS (Japan Electric Vehicle Standard) G105-1993 from the Japan Automobile Research Institute.
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