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The juxtaposition of Wal-Mart and the smart grid made an old idea bubble back up for me: what if every Wal-Mart across the country provided free electric vehicle charging stations in their parking lots for their customers?  Think of the enormous storage capacity this would provide to the smart grid.  The stores themselves are fairly ubiquitous and Wal-Mart seems to know how to roll-out nationwide programs in its stores.  This would be a step in the right direction for providing storage capacity to the grid and widespread grid access for electric vehicles, but would have some limitations.

• Dynamic capacity – the storage capacity provided would be constantly changing as cars plug into and unplug from the grid.  Also, there would be no capacity provided at night, when there is the greatest potential to bank energy due to decreased demand.
• Not ubiquitous enough – the ranges I see quoted most often for electric vehicles are 100-200 miles on a full battery.  In many areas, it would be enough to get from Wal-Mart to Wal-Mart, but in many areas it wouldn’t.
• Not enough capacity – this would only provide a tiny fraction of the capacity of other mass storage methods, but could act as more of a local reservoir and would be quicker and easier to deploy. 

Despite its problems, providing charging stations at Wal-Marts could ease the transition to the smart grid.  Consider 3 Prong Power, who make a conversion system that allows a Prius to run on batteries alone for 10 miles at speeds under 25 mph.  If a driver could get to Wal-Mart on batteries only and recharge while shopping on an existing car with a fuel backup, this might help people get used to the idea of extended or multiple trips on battery alone.  It also might encourage the environmentally-friendly shopper to choose Wal-Mart over another store…

And while we’re daydreaming, what if you could go to Wal-Mart and buy or rent an electric vehicle?  What if we didn’t have to rely on and incentivize through our normal sales channels?  What if an eVehicle maker outside of the Big 3 partnered with America’s largest retail chain to provide us with access to the electric vehicle fleet?  This supposes that someone is able to get the cost way, way down below what we currently pay for a car, I’m sure for Wal-Mart to feel comfortable with it, but even if you didn’t buy your own there, what if you could rent an electric car for the day like zipcar to try one out and see if you like it?  (I hear zipcar has their business model patented so this may not work either…). The alternatives to our current situation seem endless, and I’m sure they are being explored….