On August 2, 2021, Uber driver Tim Win took a photo with his all-electric Nissan Leaf and inserted a street-side residential electric car charging system developed by the startup Trojan Energy in London, England. REUTERS/Nick Carey
London, October 13 (Reuters)-European and American cities plan to phase out internal combustion engines over the next 15 years. First, they need to fill the charging gap for millions of residents who park their cars on the street.
Although sales of electric vehicles (EV) have soared in Europe and the United States, the lag in the installation of charging infrastructure has created obstacles.
Local authorities with tight funds usually have other priorities than a network of roadside charging points, which will allow car owners to ensure that their electric cars are always fully charged.
Although this leaves a potential gap for the private sector, few electric vehicle charging startups have become early adopters elsewhere and focus on this.
Hugh Mackenzie, chief operating officer of Trojan Energy, said: "It is really difficult to solve the problem of residential charging on the street, so there are not many companies that really do this."
Trojan has developed a charger that is being tested on residential streets in two boroughs of London. Electric car owners plug short poles into sockets on the sidewalk and then plug them into their cars.
Tim Win, an Uber driver who charges the Nissan Leaf every day, is using the system in Brent, north London.
39-year-old Win said: "After driving all day, I just want to go home and plug in.
A “taxi driver” using London’s new electric black taxis told Reuters that he often had to drive between charging points and lost valuable habits like him, only to find that they were either already in use or appeared Fault.
Just like the introduction of fiber optic cables for ultra-high-speed broadband, the use of solutions including lamp post chargers and even wireless charging for city streets will cost billions of dollars.
Solutions like Trojan horses are expensive because they require grid connections. And because there are not enough electric car owners to ensure a quick return, they have received 75% of the subsidy from the British government.
The manufacturing and installation cost of the Trojan charger is approximately £7,000 (US$9,520), but Mackenzie said that if it can be reduced to £4,500, it will be suitable for private investors.
But it still needs the support of local authorities.
Travis Allan, vice president of public affairs for Quebec City FLO, said: "The biggest factor in the success of roadside charging is whether you have an interested and participating municipality. The company has installed at least 7,000 roadside chargers in Canadian and American cities. ...
However, even local authorities like Brent, who are experimenting with lamp post chargers and other solutions, just lack cash.
Brent City Council traffic planning manager Tim Martin said that the cost of lamppost chargers is about 2,000 pounds, and the cost of fast chargers is about 15,000 pounds, so subsidies are the only option.
"The probability of being able to fund them from our own budget is almost zero," Martin said.
Based on car registration and parking permits, charging startup char.gy estimates that there are 5-10 million cars in London, of which about 76% are parked on the street.
Government data shows that the total number of 33 million cars in the UK is about 40%, and about 40% of Americans do not live in single-family homes with garages.
Although the rise of car-sharing services may reduce the demand for on-street charging, it is unclear how much it will reduce.
Char.gy CEO Richard Stobaart estimates that by 2030, the UK will need 500,000 roadside chargers, by then about half of the country's cars should be electric. Char.gy operates a network of approximately 1,000 lamppost chargers in the UK, with a manufacturing and installation cost of approximately £1,800.
Stobaart said that although there are government subsidies, local authorities often lack resources.
"So they just hesitated, it takes forever," he added.
Ubitricity, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L), is the leader in the UK market. Only 4,000 chargers use lamp posts. If they are close enough to the roadside and use LED lights, there will be enough power to charge an electric car overnight.
ubitricity CEO Lex Hartman estimates that in densely populated areas, approximately 60% of European car owners will require public charging.
Hartman said: "You need chargers at home, at work, and in supermarkets. You need fast charging, but you need to charge everywhere."
"If the infrastructure does not exist, then people will hesitate to buy an electric car unless they are forced to buy it," he added.
There are more than 90 million lamp posts in Europe, and millions of them can be used for charging. Hartmann said that his ubitricity also runs a lamp post charger network in Berlin.
A spokesperson said that the European Commission knows that city chargers are “essential to persuade more and more consumers to use electric vehicles” and have set up an expert group to advise cities on how to deploy them.
Some cities are facing huge challenges.
New York State has set a goal of zero emissions for all new passenger cars and light trucks by 2035. read more
But New York City currently has only 1,580 charging plugs that can be used for approximately 1 million cars that rely on street parking.
“Owning an electric car in a big city like New York is a very painful experience,” said Paul Suhey, co-founder of Revel, an electric moped-sharing startup that launched the city’s first Fast charging center.
The April study commissioned by New York estimated that the electrification of its transportation would cost approximately US$500 billion.
In Los Angeles, which has the most chargers in the United States, Blink Charging (BLNK.O) last year acquired the city-operated electric car sharing network BlueLA, which has 100 cars and 200 charging stations.
Blink CEO Michael Farkas said that local authorities want to build charging infrastructure in as many places as possible to encourage people to buy electric vehicles, but the company cannot afford these investments until ownership increases.
Fakas said: "You can't just have your dream field. Unless the government is willing to pay for it, you will go bankrupt."
Even in Norway, where the state supports putting it at the forefront of electric transformation, it is difficult to implement on-street charging.
Sture Portvik, who is in charge of charging infrastructure, said that Oslo provides subsidies for large public chargers and fast chargers, and these investments will pay off in three to six years.
However, in cities that will begin to ban the use of fossil fuel vehicles in the next few years, it is a major challenge to allow 30% of car owners who do not have designated parking spaces to charge.
"Regardless of the economic background, it is very important that everyone can be a part of the green transition," Portwick said. "And they will have to do this because they will have to sell their diesel cars in a few years."
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