Parkmobile, which we usually know for their mobile parking payment services, is teaming-up with Liberty PlugIns (LPI) to allow electric vehicle (EV) owners to pay for charging using their mobile phones. Drivers will be able to use their phones and native mobile apps (available for iPhone, BlackBerry and Android) to pay for a charging session and the revenues are deposited directly into the parking lot owners and operators’ existing merchant banking accounts.
LPI’s so called Synchronous Codes algorithm is installed on Parkmobile’s servers to create unique authorization codes that are transmitted to drivers via their mobile phone (mobile app or SMS). As a result, parking lot owners and operators get a new/consolidated revenue stream from both parking and EV charging without having to install additional billing hardware or deal with proprietary billing systems.
Love the idea and can only hope this will hit the mainstream sooner rather than later. Similarly I’m hoping we won’t have to wait for too long to see a major drop in EV prices…