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At the height of electric cars, in the early 2010s, Nissan devised a very ambitious plan: To increase sales of its electric cars, it began to develop a strong charging infrastructure in Europe. The project also included a lightning charger donation program, under which the Japanese automaker, in cooperation with municipalities or open companies, installed publicly available charging stations. As part of the collaboration, Nissan provided the high-performance charger, while the partners assumed the installation and operating costs. Therefore, on July 17, 2013, the CHAdeMO standard lightning charger was put into operation in Siófok Town Hall Square, from where it was possible to buy power for free for many years.
We can say without exaggeration, the lightning charger in Siófok was an iconic place, where presumably all the old Hungarian electric cars whose car was able to connect and extract power from the lightning charger turned around.
It is known that it was probably the first charging device of the CHAdeMO system in Hungary, preceded by the lightning charger delivered on April 4, 2012 in Mol-kút in istenhegyi út. Incidentally, this last equipment was available to anyone for free until the end of July 2018.
We also visited the legendary lightning charger in Siófok several times, because thanks to the team’s 50 kW power, here it was possible to charge the vehicle battery relatively quickly. We loaded the Nissan Leaf with a 30 kWh battery here before arriving in Budapest in 2016 at a highway speed of 130. And from here we started a tour of Lake Balaton with the largest Leaf equipped with a 40 kWh battery in the summer 2018.
Honestly, it always felt good to come here when the magazine was empty because we didn’t have to wait half an hour, sometimes an hour and a half, to stand in line at the column. And if someone was only loading their car because they could talk, tell stories, share experiences with others.
But it was also the place where my girl, who was only two years old then, asked me to show me how to connect the charging cable to the car, who couldn’t even be alone at the time. Other times we sleep a lot, even during charging.
Without exaggeration, many of our beautiful memories were linked to this location, which is why it hurt so much when we heard that the municipality of Siófok would dismantle the lightning station in the Town Hall Square forever. Maybe it is not true, maybe it is a mistake, we thought as we wrote our questions to the municipality of Siófok about the future of the filler column. However, the official response did not reveal any errors, as they wrote:
The CHAdeMO lightning charger will be removed in Siófok Town Hall Square. The charger can be used until midnight on May 10, after which it will be disassembled. The reason for this is that the 5-year cooperation agreement with the charging station installer has expired, or this charger does not meet the requirements of the Electromobility Act, which comes into force in the summer, because it does not have a CCS connector.
We also learned that in 2019, due to free charges, approximately
THE COST OF ELECTRICITY USED WAS 1.3 MILLION HUF, WHICH THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT HAD TO REIMBURSE.
I think I want to thank Siófok the most for operating the lightning charger for so many years and providing the possibility of free charging. At the same time, it is important to talk about the fact that electric motorists will not be left without the possibility of charging, since the municipality of Siófok still operates charging points in three locations and it is possible to buy electricity in six other locations in the city . In addition, as we have learned, three new filling points are being built in Siófok.
It is also important to note that the free charging institution for electric cars, with the exception of one place at a time, has ceased to exist in Hungary. As we reported a few days ago, The electric motor has reached a milestone: the charging points installed by e-Mobi will also have to pay for the energy received from May 1.
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