Electric Vehicles and Opportunity Charging

Tina Juarez writes:

I get the impression that folks don’t really understand the cost of electricity to charge an EV… When the local Costco decided after years of letting my charge my EV while shopping that I was stealing too electricity from them, I called the local power company got their commercial rate and figured out my 3 hour shopping spree cost them about $.45.

Actually, what seems to be happening here to me is the opposite: mall owners are establishing free charging stations to encourage their customers to stay longer (and thus spend more).

But you bring up a critically important point concerning the facilitation of the migration to electric transportation. I.e., an important factor is the use of information technology (based on the Internet) to square up for the purchase of electrical power when one is away from home.

You’ll be happy to know that dozens of people and organizations are working hard to bring this about. You will probably not be as happy to learn that by my wits, there is very little cooperation and sharing of knowledge between them. In fact, many of them seem to be deliberately working against one another, each seeking to establish a different “standard”, each fighting for leadership and ultimate market dominance. This, of course, would be no different than cell phone technology, computer hardware (Mac vs. PC), software (Microsoft vs. Linux/Unix) or any of dozens of different ways that corporate giants profit at the expense of the consumer.

I’ll ask Brian Wynne to comment on this more directly, as he’s in a unique position to look into this process and to comment on what I wrote here.