Swedish McDonad’s might offer plug-in hybrid stations soon

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February 16, 2009 by admin

A book I read a long time ago about the rise of McDonald’s in America explained that what Ray Kroc was really interested in was real estate, not hamburgers. The idea being that if you made your food available absolutely everywhere, then you would always be an option for people when they got hungry. Since there are now so many McDonald’s restaurants, it makes sense that plug-in vehicle proponents in Sweden are gearing up to use all those acres of parking lots for PHEV charging stations. Treehugger says that the plan will see McDonald’s paying to install the posts while the Elforsk company makes sure there is enough juice to the posts to charge vehicles quickly (more information in this Swedish PDF). A 230 volt – 16 amp pilot post should be installed at a Stockholm McDonald’s soon. The posts will be made by Eldon, which currently says it will take between 30 and 45 minutes to fully charge an EV or PHEV. Perhaps Better Place should step in and suggest putting battery-swapping robots in the drive through lane.