We’ve said it time and time again. If we want to move into an electric car economy, me must be able to charge our vehicles quickly and effectively.So it makes sense to put chargers in the most convenient places we can think of - places that are easy to find that we pass everyday.
With that kind of criteria, what better place to put one in than at a McDonald’s? That’s what Ric Richards, owner of a pilot green McDonald’s in Cary North Carolina, thought as he set out to build the greenest fast food restaurant ever.
The McDonald’s features an array of green technologies and is designed to use as much daylight as possible, comes equipped with highly efficient water and kitchen fixtures, and uses drought tolerant plants. The fitout makes use of materials like sunflower seed boards, wheat boards, bamboo and kirei boards.
Recycled materials were used in the construction of the building, and an energy efficiency dashboard provides real time updates about the restaurant’s green stats to guests.
But what really caught our eye was the deployment of the electric vehicle charging stations in the restaurant. These stations are powered by Novacharge and are part of the Chargepoint charging stations that we have covered before.
It seems like a great idea to put charging stations in as many places as possible, and fast food restaurants seem like a truly ideal place for them - why didn’t anyone think of that before?!!
Of course, at the end of the day this is McDonald’s. We must give them props for moving in the right direction, green-technology-wise, at least. It would be considerably better if we could also see progress towards sustainability in their food as well. We can dream, can’t we?
Source : inhabitat, by Jorge Chapa, July 7th, 2009
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