Skylark Restaurants in Japan to offer free EV recharging at 900 locations

24 May 2012

Integrity Exports. The Skylark restaurant group in Japan plans to offer free EV public recharging at their 900 locations around Japan, with no obligation to be a customer of the restaurant.

Initially, the chargers will be standard “slow” chargers, but if you combine a meal with a bit of shopping, you could end up with a quarter to a third of a “tank” for free. Skylark will be gradually supplementing these with fast chargers as well, so customers will be able to get a full charge while they eat.

Theoretically you could tour the entire country paying nothing for your travel and eating cheap at Skylark’s restaurants. Of course, all this is in the future, as they are currently working on 9 “Gusto” restaurants—one each in Kanagawa, Saitama, Kyoto, Nara and Shiga, but this will increase to a third of their locations in the next five years.

...Of course, these will all be in addition to the charging points springing up around Japan in car dealerships (right now 25% of Mitsubishi dealers—about 180 dealerships—have chargers up and running), convenience stores (the big players like Lawson, Family Mart and Circle K together have 51 installations) and other locations.

—Stephen Munday, Integrity Exports