The move to electric vehicles has been a history of fits and starts. Certainly not a smooth adoption curve. But progress is being made.
One of the key issues is recharging. If you have to recharge your vehicle in your garage over night or use a charging station at your office, it takes away a lot of the practicality of moving to an electric vehicle. You are always restricted by the nearest charging station and your range per charge. The bigger the network of charging stations, the more practical ownership becomes.
Gogoro is taking a new approach with their electric scooters. They want people to share batteries. Some owners will invest in charging hardware. Others will visit one of their public locations where they can swap depleted batteries for charged ones. This requires a large infrastructure of new locations.
I think I have an extension or maybe and alternative to this idea (which might or might not totally suck).
Why not partner with an existing company and ramp up the ability to have stations in scads of locations? Some possible partners:
1) McDonalds/Starbucks
2) Home Depot/Lowes
3) BP/Shell/ExxonMobil
4) Red Box
5) Wal-Mart
Fast Food/Coffee
With McDonalds and Starbucks, you have a massive installed base of locations. Pick up fresh batteries and a combo meal or a latte. The convenience of a drive-thru is the cherry on top. The problem is where to put the charging hardware and where to store the batteries? Every square inch of these locations is already accounted for.
Home Improvement
With Home Depot/Lowes, they could more easily accommodate lots of chargers, and stock a large inventory of fresh batteries. It would be nothing for them to slice off a portion of their lumber yard for this operation. This would attract customers who might shop while there. They have fewer locations, but for the initial rollout, a significant percentage of the U.S. urban/suburban population would be served within a few miles of the driver's home.
Gas Stations
The tough sell, but perhaps the most attractive option would be to partner with a gasoline company. Imagine if you could swap out your scooter batteries at the nearest ExxonMobil station. They might not like the idea of competing with their bread-and-butter business, but if they think long-term, they might see the wisdom in it.
We're slowly moving away from petroleum-fueled vehicles one way or another. Long-haul semis may need petroleum products for a long time yet, but many commuters can get by with a range of 60-100 miles per charge. These are your core customers. They are already used to stopping at a gas station as part of their commute, so little would change when they switch to electric. The gas station would still retain some revenue as people make the switch, which is better than nothing. The gas company who builds out their infrastructure to support battery swapping will be better off than those who fight the march to electric-based transportation.
Red Box
The Red Box idea may sound crazy at first, but hear me out. If a kiosk can be a vendor for movie discs and video games, it's not a huge leap to create a kiosk that can accept spent scooter batteries and dispense charged batteries. The spent batteries could be recharged in the kiosk. It will be larger than a movie and game kiosk, but probably not triple the size. Plus, it can be placed outside for 24-hour access by drivers. Think of it as similar to the LP Gas exchange cages, only automated.
The size/weight dilemma.
Scooter batteries may be manageable in size, but car batteries may not be easy to swap out by a consumer. My Toyota Highlander Hybrid has a large battery pack that appears to weigh at least 100 pounds. Not an easy swap.
Thus, we have the Wal-Mart Solution. Wal-Mart has the resources (money & locations) to start converting their parking lots to support electric vehicle charging at every parking spot. They may start with a row of charging-compatible spots, and expand as demand requires. The cost of charging a vehicle for 30-60 minutes should be offset by the purchases made in the store during that time.
Wal-Mart
Joe Suburbia is running errands on the weekend. He stops by Wal-Mart, as usual, plugs in, and goes shopping. He spends $100 on groceries and other essentials. Maybe he buys a new cell phone. Or a UHD TV. To extend the amount of time he can recharge, he has a meal at the Subway inside the store.
Who pays for the service at Wal-Mart? I can think of a couple ways. They could directly charge the consumer with a credit card terminal outside the entrance of the store, much like you can pay for parking at stations near your parking spot. They could establish a rewards program that gives them energy credits earned by shopping at the store. Swipe your member card and points are deducted while you re-charge your batteries.
They could also tie it into the Wal-Mart credit card. The more you spend at Wal-Mart using the Wal-Mart credit card, the more credits you earn. Maybe you earn double points for using the Wal-Mart credit card rather than another payment method. If I don't have enough credits to cover a charge, the cost of the charge is put on my Wal-Mart card.
Or, they could just provide charging as a service, and recoup their costs as you shop. They don't charge for parking, so maybe they won't charge for charging your batteries.
Didn't we already go through this with public wifi? Initially, they wanted to charge you to use their wifi hotspots at restaurants, stores, hotels, and airports. Free wifi is now nearly ubiquitous.
