When the plug-in hybrid revolution hits, think about how it will change the nature of a parking lot. Suddenly, every electrical outlet is a gas pump. They will have to be protected with secure payment technology. Corporate parking garages will have to install devices at each stall that an employee can punch in an access code into which starts the "juice" flowing to recharge the car while working.

Is there a new payment card technology brewing along with associated metering/e-commerce technology?

http://www.projectbetterplace.com/

There are many V2G (G2V or smart grid) projects ongoing as we speak. The sooner the basic hardware spec. is finalized the better. Software upgrades will be much easier to perform but changing the hardware is much more difficult. Thus, I hope those people put on their thinking caps and come up with a great system. I'm thinking proximity wireless (get close and the two can authenticate automatically). No cards, no buttons (they wear out in bad weather), no fuss. I like the Project better Place concept where you just drive in and the care is automatically authenticated and the power is inductively transferred. No contact at all. Simple, effective and brilliant.

...
Is there a new payment card technology brewing along with associated metering/e-commerce technology?

There's already a system for automatic billing to your home account being run in England.

I have been wondering what will be coming of this as well.

I work at a large very liberal university. I am not liberal ;) I had planned on approaching the chancellors office about a year out of the Volt roll-out to install some plug-ins for the next gen vehicles to help 'save the earth' (have to play it from that angle, when it has nothing to do with my motivations to buy the Volt).

I only pay 5 cents a kilowatt hour MAX (with most of my car charging energy costing 4 cents). I wont be thrilled to recharge for much more than the basic residential rate (in this area, it is ~9.8 cents).

This is an interesting topic. I've been thinking about asking the boss to give me an outlet somewhere in the parking lot for my electric car. I don't actually need it, as I have just enough juice for my daily round-trip commute. But, it would be nice as it would prolong the life of my batteries by not depleting them so much and it would give me extra flexability if I wanted to go somewhere for lunch or go somewhere different on my home from work. Obviously right now I'm the only person in my city with an EV so my boss wouldn't have to worry about the old saying, "if you do it for one person, you have to do it for everyone." But in 10 years, who knows. In my case, the electric costs wouldn't probably exceed $1 or $2 for my employer per month, but if you multiply that by a few hundred, then the story might change.

The thing that concerns me is the possibility of this vehicle to grid technology. Theoritically, with that, people could steal electricity and take it home and use it to power their house or sell back to the power company.

so.. I think we would need to eventually have some kind of metering system setup where you might need to pay based on the amount of amp-hours you use.

At some point it'd be neat to have a unique code in the Volt key fob that would "open" the commercial plugin spots (either to manually plug in or automatically as described above) and then the electricity would show up on the monthly electric bill. The kind of ID's that let people keep driving through Express Pass toll booths might also work if it was a family that owned (gasp) electric cars from multiple comanies.

There are countless business models for supplying electric outlets in parking lots, from paid metering to complimentary electricity for customers. I do not fear for a shortage of outlets, once electric vehicles become ubiquitous.

We could start to see parking lots covered with solar panels, making very effective use of the space.

Up here in Calgary many (if not most) parking lots, parkades etc. have electrical outlets in each parking stall. This is so that motorists can plug in their block heaters during the winter when the weather is cold. Whatever electricity cost is associated with this is paid for by the lot owners (businesses, City of Calgary etc.) It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few years if electric vehicle start to become popular. If the City managed lots start charging for electricity it could mean extra money flowing into the city budget for road work and such (which would be a good thing) although it probably won't go over well with commuters.

We could start to see parking lots covered with solar panels, making very effective use of the space.

We still need the price of solar to come down by an order of magnitude before we'd see this. Sorry about the grumpy tone of this, but I just priced out solar for my house and it'd cost three times the price of the house. Maybe turbines on the garages?

Tagamet-

Solar has come down a bit in production costs but worldwide demand has been too high (dang Germans). Perhaps if the global economy weakens enough (hopefully not) you'll get your shot soon since production is set to multiply, but arent' you in the Northeast?

John Laukner was very excited about a charging solution that they saw. I got the impression that it was from someone with deep pockets that could follow through once demand is there.

I see charging as the lowest hanging fruit to increase e-miles driven. The free market will provide the stations, but the process will take time. The government could play an effective role in helping to expedite this process.

...The government could play an effective role in helping to expedite this process.

Wow, a brand new oxymoron.
Thanks for the chuckle.
Tagamet

Koz,

The Germans are helping cost reduce solar tech on their dime, so that we will eventually get the best prices on the panels, when they are built out.