Japan's first coin-op EV charging machine costs a pretty penny

May we some day see a desperate electric vehicle driver begging the local drugstore to break a dollar so he can get home?

Maybe, at least in Japan. What's believed to be the world's first coin-operated electric-vehicle charging machine is being produced by Fuji Electric, Green Car Reports says, citing Japan For Sustainability.

The machines allow those without smart cards or pre-registration agreements to get some EV juice by plugging the machine with change. The system allows the machine's owner to charge what they want – folks pay per kilowatt hour. Given the cost of the machine, though, the prospect probably won't come cheap. The coin-op machine costs about $7,300 more than a typical EV charging machine.

That's a lot of quarters.