What's the news?
Could it be that the days of (a) cruising around, looking for a petrol station and (b) using an entire packet of wet wipes to get the diesel smell of your hands could soon be over? At least according to Nissan, which has teamed up with legendary architects Foster + Partners (the Gherkin in London, Apple's HQ in California) to design the next generation of fuel stations. Which appear to be set into the kerb in a normal street-side parking bay.
It's part of Nissan's push to get us into electric cars and to make those electric cars quicker and more convenient to charge. Last month, Nissan announced a 7kW wireless charging device that could easily accommodate overnight charging for a larger battery pack - like the 500km, 60kW pack that is currently in development at the company's Research and Development headquarters in Atsugi, Japan.
Richard Candler, General Manager, Advanced Product Strategy: "We've been at the forefront of zero emission mobility since 2010, and for us this project is about inspiring people to come on the journey with us. The world around us is changing, and we find that tremendously exciting. With the rise of connected cities, there is the capacity for fuelling to be built into the very fabric of our day-to-day lives - independent infrastructure could be a thing of the past."
Nissan's also busy this week at the COP21 Climate Change Conference in Paris, where it's showing off new tech that allows charged cars to re-supply some of their energy to the electricity grid at peak demand times.