The new standards will require that all stations receiving federal funding allow payment by credit card.
Requiring allowing cash would also be nice, but given the current state of charging infrastructure, it would be somewhat hard to do. Sometimes there’s no clear way to get a hold of anyone in-person if something is wrong with the charger. Though maybe charging stations should be pushed towards that anyways.
There’s reasons to keep cash around. It’s used by disadvantaged people or people without bank accounts, i.e. people that need it really need it. It’s a physical object that you own and can’t be deleted in a database by a malicious government. It’s also resistant to tracking, and allows things like paying for products in a legalized state when it’s illegal federally.
Most people can live their lives right now without worrying about any of that, but we’ll see what the next 4 years brings
Am I the only one who hates this? I mean, it’s fine as an option, but just let me swipe my debit card or pre-pay in cash for a certain number of KW/h.
I saw a very good argument about supporting physical cards. Among other reasons:
Plug-and-charge certainly can be convenient, but it can also be incredibly inconvenient in some non-zero number of situations.
Cards are required for federal funding:
Requiring allowing cash would also be nice, but given the current state of charging infrastructure, it would be somewhat hard to do. Sometimes there’s no clear way to get a hold of anyone in-person if something is wrong with the charger. Though maybe charging stations should be pushed towards that anyways.
What fraction of the population still use cash? Most people I know don’t even bother carrying it anymore.
There’s reasons to keep cash around. It’s used by disadvantaged people or people without bank accounts, i.e. people that need it really need it. It’s a physical object that you own and can’t be deleted in a database by a malicious government. It’s also resistant to tracking, and allows things like paying for products in a legalized state when it’s illegal federally.
Most people can live their lives right now without worrying about any of that, but we’ll see what the next 4 years brings