Remember When …

Remember when you ran around to find a branch of YOUR bank just to use THEIR ATM machine to get cash! That was in the late 1970s before the advent of digital data networks and ATM consortiums. These consortiums enabled groups of banks to allow their customers the use of any member bank’s ATM to access their account at another member bank. Since then, ATM deployment grew rapidly from about 2,000 ATMs in 1973 to 470,135 ATMs by 2016. More interesting is that more than half were not owned by banks! What’s the implications? (See the 2018 study by the Department of the University of North Florida entitled “The Locational Study of ATMs in the U.S. by Ownership.”)

Why am I even interested in the history of ATMs you might wonder?

First, let me ask if you have ever run out of gas, for your car I mean? Or worse, you drive an EV and one day you really needed a charge, and you find that the charging station you come to did not belong to the charging network that you belong to! Chances are, you need to pre-register before you can use the charger that you now need. Therein lies my interest in ATMs. If I can get cash at a bank’s ATM of which I do not have an account, why can’t I charge my EV at any charging station of which I am not a member of their network?

#electricvehicle #building #networking #transportation #EVSE