Last night I wrote about Best Buy’s move to begin selling electric bikes, scooters and motorcycles which has raised some eyebrows. It appears McDonald’s (MCD) is preparing for the green vehicle revolution as well, announcing yesterday that it would open its first green restaurant complete with eco-friendly materials and electric vehicle charging stations on July 14th at a restaurant in Cary, North Carolina. It’s certainly not hard to imagine retailers and restaurants offering EV charging stations in their parking lots for a little extra added revenue. I’d expect this to be the first of many announcements in this space particularly as more electric vehicles begin hitting the road next year.
NovaCharge, a leader in EV charging infrastructure, will handle the installation of ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations from Coulomb Technologies.
“The networked grid-friendly charging stations are a perfect complement to the many innovative green features of the restaurant,” said Ric Richards, “Our customers will have a dedicated place to park and recharge their vehicles. McDonalds is enabling a better environment for future generations by supporting zero-emissions transportation infrastructure, through the use of the ChargePoint(SM) Network.”
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Coulomb Technologies, Inc.
is the above company preparing to be on the stock market, if so when.
This is lovely and all, but if McDonald’s is serious about helping the environment they should look at their core business — by making changes there they could have a much bigger impact. Electric car plug-in stations are nice, but eliminating drive throughs would have a bigger environmental impact — and probably help shrink some waistlines by forcing people to walk a few steps and burn some of those calories they are about to consume. Of course, the largest potential sits within their menu, sourcing and transport. Reducing meat options, de-indstrialzing their meat production and sourcing food regionally would go a long way to reducing McDonald’s carbon footprint.