Nissan’s EV batteries to get second life with xStorage

Electric car manufacturer teams up with National Grid, Eaton and Foster + Partners to provide all electric vision of the future.

Published: May 10, 2016 at 11:00 pm

Still sucking energy out of the grid during peak hours and costing you an arm and a leg to charge all those smartwatches you never wear? Well Japanese car manufacturerNissanhave other ideas about how efficiently we manage power at home - breathing new life into batteries from their LEAFelectric vehicle(EV) after they’ve reached their usable lifespan in the car.

In partnership with power management suppliers Eaton, Nissan’s new xStorage device is built of 12 batteries from their EVs that will allow homeowners to draw power from the National Grid when it’s cheap or renewable, and store it so that it can be used at peak times at a lower cost. You can also sell any unused energy back to the grid to soften the blow from those utility bills a little further.

The device will still set you back around £3,200 but this does give you a store of 4.2KWh to feed your craving for power, and Nissan expects to sell more than 100,000 xStorage devices over the next five years.

“We want to make energy storage exciting and affordable to everyone,” says Nissan Europe chairman Paul Willcox. “Not least because it delivers real consumer benefits whilst ensuring smarter and more sustainable energy management for the grid.”

It’s not the only powerful news from Nissan, who also revealed plans to introduce their vehicle to grid (V2G) system (which we firsthad a look atback in February) to the UK, and outline their vision of an all-electric future, which they designed in collaboration with Foster + Partners. Check out this future of electric dreams in the video below:

Sometimes it’s hard enough to remember where you left your car in the morning anyway without it driving off in the middle of the night to find a vacant parking spot, and we’re not entirely sure about pulling up, quite literally, to your desk when you get to the office, but with cities getting busier and non-electric cars still pumping out harmful emissions, we’re delighted to see a cleaner future is on the horizon.

And also a cheaper one, we can definitely buy into that...

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