Most of the major global automakers are introducing electric vehicles in the coming years, with brands like GM's Volt and Nissan's LEAF leading the pack. The problem all automakers are dealing with is getting people to treat their cars like their smartphones, and plugging them in regularly. This should be easy enough for people who own houses (especially if they've got a garage), but for condo owners there's a number of problems. The biggest being that there's no connection between their hydro bills and the parking garage.

One local businessman wants to change that, by starting a company called ParkPlug Power aimed at helping condo owners charge up their cars. Fraser Stark, the one and only man behind his business so far, wants to work with condo boards to help make it easier for potential EV buyers to hook up. Their cars.

"I believe there's a strong alignment between people who live in condos and people who want EVs" says Stark. Young professionals, who perhaps keep the car mainly for short trips around town and not for daily 100 km commutes, are an obvious market.

What Stark envisions is a box, "about the size of a microwave," that charges an EV on the condo building's electricity—but ParkPlug would handle the billing so the owner doesn't get free juice. "You don't pay for your neighbour's gas, why should they pay for your electricity?"

EVs, already cleaner than standard cars, get greenest when charged overnight in Ontario because that's when Ontario's nuclear, hydroelectric and wind power is most abundant. The ParkPlug box would, as Stark currently envisions it, also be capable of timed charging so it would keep the owner's bill low.

Stark hopes that ParkPlug will have its first contract with a condo board signed in a few months. In the meantime, here's an adorable ad for the Nissan LEAF featuring a polar bear.

Blog photo by Tom Raftery via Flickr