Toyota, Hitachi to use EV batteries for elevators

Toyota Motor Co and a Hitachi Ltd subsidiary said on Friday they plan to roll out a system to keep elevators running by drawing power from the batteries of electric vehicles EVs Few cars today are capable of bi-directional charging, where vehicles can be a power source for homes, or feed energy back into the grid, though carmakers such as Ford Motor Co and Renault SA are among those who are jumping on the bandwagon.

Nissan and Hitachi Building Systems Co Ltd are focused on keeping elevators running when the power supply is disrupted, in what appears to be an early attempt to make wider use of EV batteries.

The firms said they had kept an elevator with capacity for nine people running at a slow speed for 10 hours, by drawing power from the battery of a Sakura, a fully electric micro kei car made by Nissan.

A Hitachi Building Systems executive said that the V 2 X system uses the CHAdeMO charging standard supported by Nissan.

It allows it to draw power from larger Nissan EVs, such as the Ariya and Leaf models.

Tatsunori Takahashi, a director at Hitachi Building Systems, said he hopes the firm will provide the system to apartment buildings starting in April.