Shopping Centers shuld offer free charging for electric vehicles as an added incentive to shop there.
-- simonj, Aug 04 2011

Evening Standard: Electric car charge points installed at Sainsbury's http://www.thisislo...ed-at-sainsburys.do
Article dated November 2009 [zen_tom, Aug 04 2011]

[+] That's actually a good idea. Not very expensive: setting aside a portion of the parking lot for EV's ,NEV's, e-bikes and scooters would cost peanuts, and the maintenance contract wouldn't be much either in the grand scheme of things.
-- FlyingToaster, Aug 04 2011


>An added incentive to who? The 2% of drivers who actually use electric vehicles?

obviously. and those considering getting one.
-- simonj, Aug 04 2011


That 2% is probably the 2% that actually has money. I've seen shopping centers fold due to a demographic perception of a crime center, due to a dangerous 2% that hung out there.
-- RayfordSteele, Aug 04 2011


I prefer to have my free stuff delivered, but the point is that the mall would then be open to electric'ing people at twice the distance than before.
-- FlyingToaster, Aug 04 2011


As a USP, it's great from the shop's perspective, they get to attract wealthy, impressionable, first-adopters, and encourage them to spend more time in their stores. On the assumption that the electric car is not the betamax of th future, then it's a sensible proposition. There are quite a few production electric models out right now, and while their range is limited, the combination of battery technology and the prevailing oil-price is such that they are economically viable. Those two things (technology and the oil price) are only going to go in one direction, and as such, I'd predict that we're going to see a lot more electric in the future. Or, hydrogen cells. The benefit of electric, in the distribution sense, is that the hard work is already done. To do the same with hydrogen would mean lots of infrastructure work being carried out by the existing oil companies, whose interests are best served maintaining the oil monopoly. So maybe the electric car will split that monopoly wide enough for the oil companies to decide to move in on the hydrogen market, and install hydrogen pumps at their stations. Because if you had the convenience of hydrogen, you wouldn't bother with batteries and direct electricity. At least not in the UK where there isn't the opportunity to feast on reliable solar rays to trickle-charge your car.
-- zen_tom, Aug 04 2011


Except commercial hydrogen production is still coming from fossil fuels, so there is no benefit from switching.
-- MechE, Aug 04 2011


There is in respect that emissions can be taken care of at one point instead of several million. If they bothered to, that is. And if they did so in a responsible fashion (seriously, what twit thought up "bury the CO2" and have they razed his/her primary school yet)
-- FlyingToaster, Aug 04 2011


I don't very much like all this talk about charging batteries of electric vehicles. It is allready clear that in the future these cars will exchange empty batteries for full ones and continue on their way quickly.
-- zeno, Aug 04 2011


// have they razed his/her primary school yet //

Oh yes, and it burned beautifully .....

// exchange empty batteries for full ones and continue on their way quickly //

You humans are just soooo far behind the curve with energy storage technology.

We like this idea, as it would make it possible to roll up to the store with a gas-guzzling pickup truck stacked high with lead-acid accumulators, and suck up a whole load of "free" electricity while in the store stocking up on essentials ("canned food and shotguns").
-- 8th of 7, Aug 04 2011


I feel so sorry for someone called "we"
-- po, Aug 04 2011


Yes, Queen Elizabeth II has suffered terribly for decades ...
-- 8th of 7, Aug 04 2011


May well be true. Her vast wealth probably makes a negligible marginal contribution to her happiness; her fame surely makes none at all, or a negative one. She may find the progress of England under her reign satisfactory, but must know that Elizabeth I or Victoria would see it as a succession of humiliations. At her age, a lot of one's happiness is vicarious -- what, in Yiddish, is called "nachas" -- through one's children and grandchildren. I wonder if she feels a lot of that.
-- mouseposture, Aug 04 2011



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