With GM’s recent announcement that it has partnered with electric utilities to help bring plug-in electric vehicles to market, Joel Makower asks some important questions and sees some problems:
First of all, not everyone has a socket — a secure place to park their car and recharge it. Those living in apartment buildings, for example, lack this ability. Even where a plug exists, it may not have sufficient amperage to handle the load. (I’m a good example: I have a socket in my garage, but it’s on the same circuit as my bedroom. If you plug in a power-hungry appliance in the garage, TiVo gets grumpy.) But that’s the least of it. Building the plug-in infrastructure involves a mind-numbing array of technical challenges.
Read the whole thing here.