Third Space

If it took upwards of ten minutes to charge an electric car what would that mean for the culture of instant gratification we live in and who is best positioned to make a quick buck in this space are some of the questions this article in Big Money deals with. The author Mathew DeBord suggests that Wal-Mart with their commodious parking lots could be a very good fit. They could make good use of their space and entice customers to step inside the store to shop while they are waiting for their car to be recharged.

The premise is clearly that people with ten or fifteen minutes of idle time will have no idea what to do with themselves and their pocket books. They will absolutely need stuff to do (that someone can monetize) to fill that time gainfully.

But what if the slow charing cars cause a general cultural shift toward slowness and people get comfortable having nothing to do while their cars juice up. That would be a good third space to have - a place to wait and watch the grass grow, maybe chat with a stranger who like yourself is has ten minutes weighing heavily on them. It would be really nice if some big box store did not jump and kill any chance there was to slow down the pace of our lives just a little bit.