Street lamp EV charging - anyone actually used these?

[coetzeeh]

As above, aside from being relatively slow have you found charging your EV using street lamps connected chargers easy to use?

[aestetix1]

coetzeeh said:

As above, aside from being relatively slow have you found charging your EV using street lamps connected chargers easy to use?

It really depends who is running the scheme. If it's free, roll up and plug in then it's going to be very easy to use. If you need to have payment cards, or set it up in advance etc. then it really depends how well they designed the system.

[kambites]

Are they not covered under the "must support contactless payment" rules the government introduced for new public chargers?

[Omaruk]

Have used ecotricity. Easy to use, with contactless app payment

[chrisgeary]

No off street parking on my vic terrace so my primary charger is an Ubitricity streetlamp here. It's a QR code to get started, although it's a unique URL so I've bookmarked the page. It's a bit of a click fest to get it going but not that much of a big deal really. 5.5kW available, perfect for overnight or even a couple of hours to top back up before heading out.

[dvs_dave]

chrisgeary said:

No off street parking on my vic terrace so my primary charger is an Ubitricity streetlamp here. It's a QR code to get started, although it's a unique URL so I've bookmarked the page. It's a bit of a click fest to get it going but not that much of a big deal really. 5.5kW available, perfect for overnight or even a couple of hours to top back up before heading out.

Damn you and your successful real world EV experience with such an impossible living situation!

The naysayers won’t like you one bit as this is invariably their #1 go-to argument.

[dapprman]

However that only works if you can park near enough to the lamp post. If not you're not charging.

[chrisgeary]

True. There are 4 points within walking distance (less than a minute) of my house and so far I've always been able to get to the one nearest to me. There is enough churn on the street that even if the spot isn't available when I park up that even a few hours later it will probably become available again. If I need to charge urgently, there is a rapid a mile away that's 6p/kwh more expensive.

[dhutch]

Sounds very manageable. Good information.

[dapprman]

Sounds like it is very area dependant - in Hertfordshire, Watford specifically, they've been redoing the street lights over the last few years (low powered ones ) and have actually been spreading them further apart, but there again council policy has been to stop parking on more and more main roads, pushing those cars in to the increasingly crowded side roads.

[itz_baseline]

chrisgeary said:

No off street parking on my vic terrace so my primary charger is an Ubitricity streetlamp here. It's a QR code to get started, although it's a unique URL so I've bookmarked the page. It's a bit of a click fest to get it going but not that much of a big deal really. 5.5kW available, perfect for overnight or even a couple of hours to top back up before heading out.

I’ve never seen one of these before. Out of interest, is there a cable running across the pavement to your car? Is there potential for the ambulance chasers to ‘trip’ over the cable and hurt themselves? Is this going to be the next big thing?

[chrisgeary]

The posts are installed near to the kerb minimising inconvenience for pedestrians, providing enough gap for cars to reverse in without hitting the post and meaning there is no cables running across the pavement. An example (not my street or car):



This is from Ubitricity's own website and the cable seen here is one of their now elusive smart cables but a normal type 2 works as well (slightly different tariff).

[ZesPak]

In the same "discussion", in Belgium they've announced a new set of regulations ( article in Dutch).

Basically from next month, if you put in a permit for a new non-residential building that has more than 10 parking spaces, you'll have to provide at least two charging stations and facilities to have a quarter of the spaces wired.

For residential buildings, you need tube/cabling for every parking spot. Also if you just have to put in a permit for renovations.

It all seems quite reasonable and I'm actually impressed that they started this now. Of course a lot of buildings last a lifetime but this does mean that new office buildings and new stores will have mandatory charge points, greatly expanding the number of people that can make use of an EV.

[aestetix1]

ZesPak said:

In the same "discussion", in Belgium they've announced a new set of regulations ( article in Dutch).

Basically from next month, if you put in a permit for a new non-residential building that has more than 10 parking spaces, you'll have to provide at least two charging stations and facilities to have a quarter of the spaces wired.

For residential buildings, you need tube/cabling for every parking spot. Also if you just have to put in a permit for renovations.

It all seems quite reasonable and I'm actually impressed that they started this now. Of course a lot of buildings last a lifetime but this does mean that new office buildings and new stores will have mandatory charge points, greatly expanding the number of people that can make use of an EV.

That's very good. The UK was supposed to be requiring all new residential properties to have charging facilities, but it seem to have been dropped.

Wouldn't buy a house without the ability to charge now, in a few years it's going to be a huge problem.