Abstract:

Since the invention of the automobile, architecture has adapted to the fact that the people inhabiting buildings are driving there. Author E.B. White once said"everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car." The electric vehicle gives both people and architecture a freedom of control over the energy (or "fuel") that is stored within their own vehicle. The electric vehicle, its capacity to store large amounts of energy, and the ability to recharge anywhere will cause the gas station tobegin to fade away. How this energy is used beyond just driving starts when the vehicleis parked. For example, the average person who works 8 AM to 5 PM during the week has to park his or her vehicle somewhere during the course of the day. During the middle of the day is when electricity is in the highest demand and there is also a large mass of the people whose vehicles are sitting parked during the work day. If people had electric vehicles there would be an opportunity for local electricity production during this time. Because this electricity is in higher demand during the middle of theday, the money one would get for selling the electricity back to the grid would be greater, and the electric vehicle owner would make more profit selling the energy outof their vehicle during this time. While one's vehicle was parked and plugged in, theenergy stored within it could be sold to the local grid and still be fully recharged beforeone left work at 5 PM. This also creates the opportunity for the buildings themselves to be entirely integrated with the electric vehicle, selling excess energy to the grid as well.What this means for the individual electric vehicle owner, is less dependency on thegrid, as well as a profit from selling energy back to the grid.