LONDON -European and U.S. cities planning to phase out combustion engines over the next 15 years first need to plug a charging gap for countless residents who park their cars on the street.
For while electric vehicle sales are soaring in Europe and also the United States, a lag in installing charging infrastructure causes a roadblock.
Often cash-strapped local authorities have other priorities than a kerbside network of charging points which would allow proprietors to ensure their EVs will always be topped up.
And while that leaves a possible gap for that private sector, it's one that few EV charging startups, who've been early adopters in other locations, are focused on.
“It’s really difficult to tackle on-street residential charging, so there’s really not many companies that have,” Hugh Mackenzie, chief operating officer at Trojan Energy, said.
Trojan is promoting a charger, that is being tested on residential streets in two London boroughs, where EV owners insert a brief pole into sockets sunk into the pavement after which plug in their car.
Tim Win, an Uber driver who charges his Nissan Leaf every single day, is using the system in Brent, north London.
“After I’ve been driving all day long I just want to come home and plug in,” said Win, 39, who used a nearby EV fast charger to replenish in Twenty minutes but may needed to wait in line for nearly an hour or so.
A “cabbie” one of London’s new electric black taxis told Reuters he often has to drive between charging points, losing valuable custom as he does, only to find they're either already being used or malfunctioning.
COST CURB
Like the unveil of fibre optic cable for ultra-fast broadband, urban on-street charging using solutions including lamp post chargers or even wireless, will cost billions.
Solutions like Trojan’s are expensive because they require grid connections. And since there aren't yet enough EV proprietors to ensure a quick return, they are 75% subsidized by Britain’s government.
Trojan’s chargers cost around 7,000 pounds to make and install, but Mackenzie says that in the event that could be cut to 4,500 pounds it will work with private investors.
But it still requires local authority buy-in.
“The largest factor in whether kerbside charging works is whether or not you have an interested and engaged municipality,” said Travis Allan, vice president for public affairs at Quebec City-based FLO, which has installed at least 7,000 kerbside chargers in Canadian and U.S. cities.
Yet even engaged local authorities like Brent, that is trying lamp post chargers and other solutions, simply lack cash.
Tim Martin, Brent council’s transportation planning manager, says lamp post chargers cost around 2,000 pounds and rapid chargers around 15,000 pounds, so subsidies would be the only option.
“The prospect of having the ability to fund them ourselves out of our own budgets is virtually zero,” Martin said.
Based on car registrations and parking permits, charging startup char.gy estimates you will find between 5 million and 10 million cars working in london, of which around 76% park on the street.
Government figures show the total is about 40% for Britain’s 33 million cars, while around 40% of american citizens don't reside in single-family homes with garages.
And as the rise of car sharing services may lessen the need for on-street charging, it's unclear by how much.
Char.gy Leader Richard Stobart estimates Britain will need half a million on-street chargers by 2030, when around 1 / 2 of the country’s cars ought to be electric. Char.gy runs a network of around 1,000 on-street lamp post chargers in Britain that cost around 1,800 pounds to make and install.
While government subsidies exist, Stobart said, local authorities often don't have the resources.
“So that they just dither also it takes forever,” he added.
Ubitricity, a Royal Dutch Shell business, may be the British market leader, with just 4,000 chargers using lamp posts, which if they are close enough towards the kerb and use LED lamps, have enough capacity to mostly charge an EV overnight.
Lex Hartman, ubitricity’s CEO, estimates that in densely-populated areas, around 60% of Europe’s drivers will need public charging.
“You'll need chargers at home, at work, in the supermarket, you'll need fast charging, but mainly you need charging everywhere,” Hartman said.
“If the infrastructure isn’t there then individuals will hesitate to purchase an electrical car unless they're forced to,” he added.
Europe has a lot more than 90 million lamp posts, countless which may be used for charging, said Hartman, whose ubitricity also runs a lamp post charger network in Berlin.
The European Commission knows urban chargers “is going to be necessary to convincing increasingly more customers to go electric,” and it has formed an expert group to advise cities on how to deploy them, a spokesperson said.
‘PAINFUL EXPERIENCE’
Some cities face a huge challenge.
New York state has set a goal for all new passenger cars and light-duty trucks to become zero-emission by 2035.
But New York City currently has just 1,580 charging plugs for around one million cars that depend on street parking.
“Owning an EV in a large city like New York is a very painful experience,” said Paul Suhey, co-founder of electric moped sharing startup Revel, which has launched the city’s first fast-charging hub.
An April study commissioned by New York estimated electrifying its transportation would cost some $500 billion.
In Los Angeles, that has the most chargers associated with a U.S. city, Blink Charging this past year bought city-run EV car sharing network BlueLA, which has 100 vehicles and 200 charging stations.
Blink CEO Michael Farkas said local authorities want charging infrastructure in as numerous places as you possibly can to inspire individuals to buy EVs, but companies cannot afford to shoulder the investments until ownership rises.
“You can’t simply have an area of dreams, you’ll go broke unless the government really wants to pay it off,” Farkas said.
Even in Norway, where state support place it the main thing on the electrical shift, rolling out on-street charging is tough.
Oslo subsidizes larger public chargers and rapid chargers, investments that repay within 3 to 6 years, Sture Portvik, who manages its charging infrastructure efforts, said.
But making charging accessible for the 30% of car owners who lack designated parking inside a city where bans on fossil-fuel cars will begin within the next few years is really a major challenge.