I think the biggest hurdle to just doing that is who pays for the electricity. Sure right now it's a nice perk you can provide your EV owning visitors that probably won't cost too much, but in a world where 10%+ of cars are EVs the costs will add up even at level 1, so you'll need to go for capital-C Chargers that come with payment infrastructure.

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adgjlsfhk1 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

one answer would be to make the parking spaces expensive enough to account for electricity. parking meters are pretty widely adopted.

	▲	WorldMaker 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Arguably a lot of parking fees are already expensive enough to account for electricity. In a city charging, say, $15/hour for parking, it seem like we should be able to expect say $0.15/hour to be a drop within the existing profit margin. There's a very simple order of magnitude relationship between the two numbers already.

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matthewdgreen 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

WiFi-controlled 120V outlet plugs cost $20 or less retail (including tariff costs.) Those aren’t rated for the sorts of continuous draw an L1 charger needs, but upgrading the hardware to handle this isn’t going to make the hardware crushingly expensive. So the actual question mostly comes down to software and integration. Seems like a good ycombinator business. Think of the TAM!

	▲	WorldMaker 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I do keep joking that I've got hundreds of dollars to invest in the first restaurant that wants to be the McDonald's of EV Charging. (The early business model of McDonald's was notoriously putting one near almost every interstate exit so it became a ubiquitous staple of the driving landscape.) Could be McDonald's itself. The Sonic-style of sit-in-your car "drive in" restaurant seems almost like a preternatural echo of an EV restaurant business. It would be a beautiful irony if Cracker Barrel decided EV charging was the next great idea; sit in a rocking chair and peruse the gift shop of very analog goods while you wait for your car to charge sounds like a smart business model to me. Some company that wants a restaurant near every interstate exit to build their brand is going to figure out that the economics of electric charging are simpler than they expect and with it they build a potentially very loyal audience of travelers with easily 30+ minutes a stop on their hands to eat, shop, what-have-you. Maybe it will be one of the old guard of such restaurants, maybe it will be a new disruptor. If someone on HN wants to start it, I have a very tiny seed fund round in the hundreds of dollars to invest.