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Interesting design for electric car charging where you don’t have a drive….
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Wont someone steal the cables?
A great idea. All a bit ‘perfect world in a nice leafy suburb in West London’ for my liking but its a step in the right direction. And all at a time when many, many councils are struggling to provide provisions for mental heath or school transport. Mmmm
As the council changes to LED lights to save money and I’m assuming the charger supplier pays for the charger unit installation as they charge for irs useage, it’s a win win.
Great idea but I can’t see my local council doing it
Wont someone steal the cables?
Probably sometimes…though if it becomes a normal thing don’t expect it will be a popular thing to pinch as everyone would have one so not worth the risk.
The cables are l9cked into position and only unlock when you unlock the car.
of course there will be morons who will cut the cables, hopefully they will get a shock….In countries where people have both a Tesla and an effective police force, the Tesla “Sentry Mode” records the cable thief or vandal in the act, then the police go & knock on the offenders door.
The cable issue is known to the ancient fossil manufacturers who also produce a few token EVs, but they’d prefer that people are put off EVs by having the cable stolen, and will pay governments to have police turn a blind eye to such crimes.
Wonderful idea..Not! Let’s (All 30 BEV or Hybrid owners….in the future!) all fight over the one closest lampost in the street! Who are they kidding?
I’m really not sure why people want to try and find negativity based on nothing but a fantasy in their mind.
when we are all hybrid/electric then like petrol stations, there will be ample charging points. When each lamppost is charging, then, just like today with parking spaces, unless you have resident parking only,myou will do the same!
this is just one of many options being looked at by forward thinking people, not the negative gang who woukd have been behind the man with the red flag law!
This is definitely a step in the right direction. And there’s no reason at all why stand alone charging posts can also be added where needed.
? I will be remembered for nothing but had great fun doing it ?
Very true Bionic, here is another option
One of the problems that kerbside lampost chargers brings up is that many councils have actively been moving their lampposts from the kerbside to the back of the pavement for “safety”, so now these councils are being asked to move the lampposts back to the kerbside again.
There are many problems & solutions & we really need to get on with the infrastructure, my town of course still has zero chargers that are not behind a paywall (we have two Tesla destination chargers for customers of a restaurant that is current closed due to Tier 4, the chargers are inaccessible & turned off).
Looking on the bright side though, Shell have installed a 50kW rapid at a smelly fossil fuel station a few miles away so you can charge your car whilst wading around in spilt diesel at a very reasonable 39p/kWh.
So, just how far from London is this tiny town with no charging facilities, just how far do you have to drive before charging a car becomes impossible without a driveway? well, town centre to London city centre is just 21 miles as the coughing bird flies. It’s a good job that London ambulances aren’t EVs as they ferry semi-stiffs out to die in our rural hospitals this week.
My street with over 70 houses only has 5 lamp posts and all of them are sat back next to property boundary walls/hedges etc and are 7 feet away from the road so even if they were to fit 5 charging points in them the cable would have to straddle the footpath which is illegal as a major trip hazard, even if you could put some kind of cover to protect the cable the street is at full capacity for parked cars and no way to get near a charging point, will be interesting to see what solution they come up with when we’re all forced to have electric.
One of the problems that kerbside lampost chargers brings up is that many councils have actively been moving their lampposts from the kerbside to the back of the pavement for “safety”, so now these councils are being asked to move the lampposts back to the kerbside again.
A similar problem exists where the footpaths are so narrow, usually on both sides of older residential streets that the street lighting has to be installed at height directly attached to resident’s houses, without utilising lamp posts.
In some residential streets in York for example, even without lamp posts you can only just get a wheelchair along the footpaths (and that is with the streetlighting etc being directly attached to house’s upper storeys), for example (and particularly on the right hand pavement):
There are plenty of other examples like this in York alone, let alone around the country.
You reach the perfect paradox where the council say that all footpaths must be wheelchair accessible so cannot permit ‘street furniture’ that makes it impassable for wheelchairs, but can offer no current solution for people who want an electric vehicle but currently have no way of charging it at home without trailing cables across the pavement – a big no-no on health and safety grounds, particularly for partially sighted/blind people and makes wheelchair accessibility very difficult to say the least.
Unless they can come up with some form of in-kerb socket that doesn’t impede access to the full width of narrow footpaths (ie a socket in the ‘road facing’ side of the kerb leaving the top surface flush with the rest of the pavement), whilst maintaining full wheelchair accessibility for disabled residents and visitors is a necessity. Of course, that then raises issues itself of how does a disabled driver in a wheelchair get down to plug in his/her electric vehicle into a very low kerb socket?
Alternatively some form of overhead catenary system could be developed (the individual wayleaves needed to attach it to people’s private property would be an immense task alone) to say nothing of the asthetics of having overhead wires strung across one’s street. Then how does the disabled driver in a wheelchair reach up to pull down their charging cable?
It is not going to be an easy one to solve, particularly for those with disabilities – either disabled footpath users or disabled motorists.
As the amount of time it takes to charge the batteries and the range the batteries can give then I think there will be less need to have to be able to charge at home. If in the future you could to the Electric Station and charge up in 10 minutes that it will relieve a lot of the current issues.
My street with over 70 houses only has 5 lamp posts and all of them are sat back next to property boundary walls/hedges etc and are 7 feet away from the road so even if they were to fit 5 charging points in them the cable would have to straddle the footpath which is illegal as a major trip hazard, even if you could put some kind of cover to protect the cable the street is at full capacity for parked cars and no way to get near a charging point, will be interesting to see what solution they come up with when we’re all forced to have electric.
Not sure with the legality claims, I’ve found no case law as such and some councils have guidance on how to lay a cable across a pathway (not across the carriageway), https://www.hants.gov.uk/transport/ev-charging-points/ev-charging-guidance
None specific to laying a charging cable across a footpath but as soon as someone trips and falls there will be a claim against the person responsible, how many can afford to pay compensation on a possible daily basis?
In that case these would eliminate that issue. Already trialling in London and two other cities
Again those rising chargers do not aleviate the problems for wheelchair users or blind/partially sighted people where the footpaths are very narrow.
Surely as disabled people ourselves, we should be looking to eliminate barriers to getting around for disabled people, not potentially trapping them by increasing ‘street furniture’, particularly on narrow footpaths.
Perhaps a solution could be to put the chargers onto mini-chicanes jutting out into the road every so often. Yes, they will reduce parking spaces accordingly and they must be low enough (and not high up a kerb) so that disabled motorists in wheelchairs can access them. But also just high enough that vehicles don’t knock down the chargers down when manouvering.
At least that would keep narrow footpaths clear and usable for disabled pedestrians.
I’m afraid we look at pavements as a minority group. We can’t get the majority not to park on pavements, I don’t ever see that changing in urban cities.
At least these pop ups and free standing chargers would be a barrier to ovementnparking lol
As far as I’m concerned all of these types of chargers will have a limited shelf life, as battery tech progresses charging an EV will be similar to filling up a standard ICE car. Five minutes at the charger will supply 200-300 miles range, which IMO is enough for most journeys.
None specific to laying a charging cable across a footpath but as soon as someone trips and falls there will be a claim against the person responsible, how many can afford to pay compensation on a possible daily basis?
Here’s an address to keep in mind for future use.
https://www.injurylawyers4u.co.uk
?
As far as I’m concerned all of these types of chargers will have a limited shelf life, as battery tech progresses charging an EV will be similar to filling up a standard ICE car. Five minutes at the charger will supply 200-300 miles range, which IMO is enough for most journeys.
Agreed – speeds of charging batteries are increasing all the time – and generally you won’t flatten the battery and then have to do a full charge so that reduces time as well.
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