EV charging is becoming serious business.  Better Place, Coulumb Technologies and others are competing to get their charging networks into the most cities, but so far there hasn't been a charging speed war among companies.  That may change soon. Japanese company JFE Engineering has developed a quick charger that can get your car's battery from zero to 50 percent in just three minutes.  If you have five minutes to spare, you'll get a 70 percent charge.  By comparison, other quick chargers need about 30 minutes to hit an 80 percent charge and standard EV chargers can take all night to provide a full charge.

This type of unit is ideal for convenience stores where drivers could recharge quickly and be on their way, just as if they were filing up with gas.

Of course all this speed does come at a price.  The units will start being available for installation in Japan next March at a cost of $60,000 for a low-cost version and double that for the standard model.

via CrunchGear