Nissan to give Leaf faster charger in 2012: home charging goes from glacial to a snail's pace?

By Michael Gorman  posted Mar 9th 2011 4:40AM

Though well on its way to joining the Dodo, one of the internal combustion engine's advantages over itsplug-in competition is refuel time -- it only takes a few minutes to gas up, but you're talking hours for anEV to top off its batteries via a standard 220 / 240-volt socket. This fact is not lost on Nissan, as it just revealed plans to offer a higher-rate charger in its 2012 Leaf -- the current model's 3.3kW charger needs eight hours to power up -- in order to better compete with the Ford Focus Electric's three to four hour charge time courtesy of its 6.6kW. And all you early adopters won't be "orphaned," as 2011 model Leafs can be retrofitted with the new electrics -- no word if Daddy Warbucks will be footing the bill.