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Comment by scoofy | Hacker News Reader

Wouldn't it be fair to say that if everyone needs their cars charged at all times, that we'd start distributing electricity throughout the day?

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Probably. If nightly base-load power becomes as demanded as daily base-load, then the price would equalize and neither day nor night would be cheaper. However, some level of incentive would still need to be kept, otherwise the spike of car charging would just be shifted to 1800-2000, when everyone gets home and plugs in.

And really, the aluminum smelters was just one example. As the nightly price equalized with the daily price, all electricity would begin getting more expensive, and everything else with it. Much as, in current times, increases in oil price can increase the price of everything.

Here's a hypothetical: Do you think it would be feasible to create a plug that has a unique id such that an electric car could be charged remotely, but billed to the owner of the car rather than the person providing access to the power grid?

Isn't that in effect what happens at charging stations? Not a unique plug id, but public access "billed to the owner of the car".

yeh you could do it but what a hassle. Would require new meters at the premises, as well as each individual circuits for each charging station that you wanted to bill (otherwise there would be no way to separate out the usage).

IOW yes, but no.

Yes, absolutely, that wouldn't be difficult at all. A car's charging plug could have a chip such as is present in newer credit cards, and the transaction would be automatic.

Yup. This is done on mining vehicles already for (liquid) fuel security... a big issue in 3rd world countries. It's pretty easy tech.

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