Imagine cars as an investment...

When you buy a new car, it is said that it loses half of its value as soon as you drive off the lot. Unless you collect rare cars, vehicles are one of the poorest economic investments anyone can make.

Sure, they provide drivers with the independence to go where they want, when they want and with the comforts of heat, shelter, music and most importantly, cupholders. And yes, some might argue there is value in the opportunities a car can give you, such as being able to get to a job. But when you pay for that car, the value consistently falls over time, especially as you dump money into repairs. And at the end of its life, you can sell it for a much lower value or just scrap it altogether.

But imagine this: What if you could use your vehicle as its own source of revenue, enough so that it could pay for itself? This is a possibility being brought forth by electric cars.

It would work quite simply. When you charge your electric car, you can do so at the low-peak hours (i.e. throughout the night while you sleep while electricity will be cheaper) and then any amount that was unused or regenerated can be sold back to the electricity grid at peak hours (i.e. weekday evenings when everyone gets home from work). The vehicle acts as a storage for electricity that can be sold back for a profit while also levelling out the peak demand on the electricity system.

That, in conjunction with the up to $10,000 the Ontario government has proposed, could make vehicles profitable and, over time, pay for themselves.

For those of you familiar with this futuristic view of our electricity system, the benefits of electric cars might be well known already. However, I had never come across the idea that the cars could pay for themselves and be their own source of revenue.

What an exciting plethora of possibilities we have for the future...