It seems electric cars are slowly but surely gaining a foothold in everyday life, at least in Japan. Last week, local tech powerhouse TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Corp.) installed a total of nine charging stations for this kind of vehicles in Tokyo.

The launch marks the first time that owners of electric cars can charge their vehicles in battery stations located in basement parking lots where all of the new charging devices are located.

TEPCO says their charging devices will enable a Mitsubishi i MiEV, for example, to run for about 40km with one charge, which just takes 5 minutes. TEPCO itself owns 40 electric cars and will use the charging stations to investigate the environmental effects they have in big cities such as Tokyo.

Via Mainichi [JP]