But They Said I Could Park Here!

So I’ve always been sort of intrigued by electric cars.  Back in the late 1890’s and early 1900's many of the earliest car designs had electric motors… but ultimately gasoline proved to be more convenient than batteries for a hundred years or so.

Fast forward to today:  GM popularized the EV1 electric car, and then killed it, and is now bringing it back – or at least something like it.  Every major manufacturer has an electric car or a hybrid in the works.  And disruptive technologies like this give birth to new companies with new products (like Tesla Motors, for instance).

So the electric car – or a gas-electric hybrid version – is here to stay.  The big question for our industry is how this might affect parking.  Should a parking space come with an electrical outlet?  Could a parker purchase electricity on demand?

Interestingly, one only needs to look to the Northern States or Canada to find parking stalls with electrical outlets.  These were never intended for recharging… instead these outlets are designed to keep the engine from freezing on a those minus 40 degree days.  Power in these outlets may not be constant, but rather cycled on-and-off according to temperature - fine for block heaters, but not so good for vehicle charging.

Demand for electric-enabled parking stall will probably increase.  But would customers be willing to pay more to park their electrical vehicle in the electric-enabled stall?  Probably, since parkers would also reduce their "range anxiety" by gaining more charge (despite that 80% of American drivers commute less than 40 miles per day).

For on-street or surface parking there are vendors in our industry (1, 2, 3) already looking at providing the on-demand electricity for vehicle charging – I’m sure we’ll see some at the IPI conference this year.  In addition, such vendors are looking at enabling the electricity only when the parker has paid for parking – so if you don’t feed money to the meter then the meter doesn’t feed the juice to your car.

Most parking managers already know that electrical costs are a big maintenance cost for a garage.  Adding electrical outlets for parkers will increase costs further by draining even more power.  Fortunately there are solutions – installing electron-sipping LED lights helps, and adding roof-based solar or wind power generation on buttresses can make more power available.

Potentially, however, the best innovation is yet to come:  technologies suggest that tomorrow’s electric vehicle will be able to communicate with the electric grid itself.  It will be smart enough to re-charge when costs are low, trickle-charge when costs are high, and even put surplus power from the batteries back into the grid when demand is really high (presumably generating a credit for the vehicle owner).

Parking has embraced technology and change over the years, and not shockingly the rise of the electric car is likely to have an impact in our industry over the next several years.