Greenlots, Bluelots, Redlots and Whitelots

You’ve seen it on the papers, you’ve seen it on car sites, you’ve seen it at furniture stores. Greenlots is a lot more than a parking lot or a tree hugger. And here I”ll discuss the possibilities.

In Singapore, there are various types of car lots, or parking spaces for vehicles in general. They come in various shape and sizes (mostly rectangular, with sizes based on vehicle sizes varying from motorcycles to trucks), and more importantly, various colors. These colors are important features. Some are blessed by the law.

For example, there’s REDlots, or REsiDent lots. For Residents only, with various timing restrictions painted in red next to the lots. Red lots are found mainly in residential carparks, reserved for season parking holders.

Then there’s WHITElots, or Way too High or Insufficient TEmporary parking spaces. Because the of the REDlots, in MSCPs (Multi-Story Car Parks) the white lots are typically too high (otherwise the residents will park there and leave the rest of the top red lots unoccupied), or if it’s on an open air car park, it’s never enough. Read this forum and you’ll get a glimpse of the situation with WHITElots. As a general purpose parking lot, anyone can park there, while payment is typically by tearing coupons or parking gantries.

Although the majority of the lots are RED or WHITE, there’s also a sizable set of BLUElots, or Badge-Limited UsE lots, where the occupier needs to secure a badge (orange or blue) by proving he or she is handicapped, before parking there. These are priority lots for the less mobile, and are frequently found in convenient places such as next to the lifts and exits of the car park.

Of course there are the invisible lots, or in many other countries it would be called road side parking, but with the no-U-turn syndrome found here, it would be natural by extension that if there’s no lot you can’t park, and those who park at the road side (ignoring the multi-colored lines such as white, yellow, double white, double yellow, double white zigzag, double yellow zigzag etc.) would be considered parking at “invisible lots”, which costs some $70 for every use. Fairly ok for the rich who can pay millions for a pigeon hole.

However, the problem of having so many colors is that in its fair use. If you have read the forum above, you would notice the inequality we create by favoring residents. Then blue lots also favor the handicapped. In a perfect society, where everyone is equal, there wouldn’t need to be colored lots, but the reality is far from being equal. The complication comes when there are specific segments of society (in this case limiting to the “drive-force”, i.e. drivers and their vehicles) who are not protected. Does a car carrying a 9 month pregnant women gets a blue lot? No. Can a boyfriend get a season parking to park at the red lot at his girlfriend’s place? No. Do you get a discount on your parking ticket if you’re a poor driver? Absolutely not. Stopping a car in Singapore is a big headache for many, unfortunately, there’s no lobby for their cause.

Enter Greenlots.

Source icars.sg: Electric scooters and electric cars

Now don’t get me wrong, Greenlots is a company. In fact I think this startup is doing something great. It is playing the role of the government (ehm.) by providing public charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. Search online for electric vehicles, urban planning, smart cities, etc. and you’ll see the impending transformation of the urban transportation landscape by electric vehicles. The reason is simple, as aptly put by Dean Kamen (inventor of Segway):

… there is no chance that we will still have 10 or 15 years from now the majority of our society, in developed parts of the world, in big cities, consuming fuel, creeping along, sucking up each other’s exhaust at 6 miles an hour, when 3 billion people live in cities. That is not going to be the way we live. Source: Minifarthing

Oh btw, check out Yike Bike too if you haven’t done so. Cool stuff.

Back to Greenlots. As any new technology, there’s gotta be developments in both the consumer adoption of the end-user device along with the infrastructure. Electric vehicles drivers today needs to return back to home to charge their vehicle, and that’s only if he or she has a landed property, a way to pull the extension cord into the garage / car shelter. For the average HDB dwellers that’s simply not possible.

It is also not feasible to set up gas stations for electric vehicles, because the charging usually takes hours. A full charge typically takes 3 hours or more. You can buy those high voltage charging but that would blow away the cost savings right away (for example the Zeco scooter on sale in Singapore is $7000, but for instant charging the battery would cost more than $10,000, also more expensive infrastructure).

So the sweet spot for now tend to be if your office / school / shopping mall offers spots for you to charge your electric vehicle. And such is Greenlots’ strategy as a start, engaging SP, RP, IKEA, INSEAD, etc. to provide such infrastructure.

Now of course there are the economics of things as well, e.g. how much would you pay to charge your vehicle (can’t be free, at least not forever…), would you mind the cost being factored into your parking charges, is it cheaper to charge at home or in IKEA etc. But let’s not dwell into that because the market hasn’t even shaped up. What’s crucial here is in the name of the company: GREENlots, or Get Ready for Energy Efficient Narcissism lots: only the futuristic vehicles need apply.

Source ikea.com.sg: Look Ma, Real Estate!

A parking lot is a piece of real estate. Just like how the red, white and blue can already create such contention for space, a green lot will simply make it worse. Imagine the future where Greenlots is available throughout the island, in every parking lot, every office, every shopping mall. Now, if legislation were to support such special lots, no cars other than electric vehicles can park at green lots, as these are the only lots that has a charger next to it. Of course there would be good intentions behind it, like the encouragement for people to buy electric vehicles instead of burning gasoline.

This fight for real estate to rest one’s vehicle is a very old problem. Back to our equal and fair society, where there’s only one color for the lot, then that color would be green, as every lot would have a charger, whether you need it or not. That’s not hard to imagine. Cities have put a parking meter at every parking lot before. But until the prevalence of electric vehicles in many cities, such solutions will be extremely expensive.

Nevertheless that shouldn’t stop us from thinking, what would be a fair way to allocate green lots? Should there be difference between Green + Red lots and Green + White lots? How much different a premium or discount should we be paying by parking at green lots? Should we allow for electric vehicles of all shape and sizes (how about my remote control car and helicopter?) What if someone gets electrocuted when operating a green lot (which, technologically is simply a 3 pin plug, maybe protected in the future when one has to pay for the use of electricity from this point)? What if someone paid for the electricity, but use it to charge his laptop by the walkway – can I still park there? Is there a penalty for “hogging” the green lot, i.e. when the charge is full, must I move my vehicle away for the next guy to charge? Add to that all the opportunity cost associated with the use of that piece of land for something else and you’ll get a big hairy ball of problem to consider.

In the short term, while electric vehicle is still in its infancy stages, land scarce places like Singapore will need to start having such conversations. Maybe it’s at the ESC level, maybe at car forums. One thing for sure, electric vehicles are coming, and they are coming quick. Tesla, Nissan, GE, and many others are launching their full electric cars these few years. They definitely need charging infrastructure that’s convenient, not like the current CNG refueling station that’s only available in Mandai and a selected number of places. And at charging speeds that takes hours, they would need a place to rest the vehicles. And if taking prevailing sentiments about off-peak cars and its $17,000 discount, most household who would consider getting an electric vehicle would probably convert the car to an off-peak car and buy a $7,000 to $17,000 range electric vehicle with no lost of functionality of needing to get from home to work in the day, while switching over to the fossil fuel car for night trips with the family to the supermarket, or weekend getaways into Malaysia. This implies a growth in the TOTAL parking space needs, as the electric vehicle won’t replace the car in the short term.

Greenlots, bluelots, redlots, whitelots or invisible lots? Purplelots for animals anyone?