Using street lamps as EV chargers
techbriefs.com
techbriefs.com
> The simple and very commonplace lamp post will soon become a ubiquitous charge point for electric cars. They charge at about 5 kW, or 16 amps, not super fast but overnight charging is all most drivers need. Ubitricity is a German based company who've come up with a simple, cheap to install and well managed system for more people on more streets to adopt electric cars.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKaEhBjt1ls
See also pop-up chargers from six years ago:
Our 14 year old Blink (no, not that one) Level 2 charger only does 5.8 kW, and it has served us fine for overnight charging even the 77 kWh battery in our current car.
The fact that putting EV chargers in lampposts works in Europe doesn't necessitate that doing so will work in the natural environment, built environment and cultural context of the US. They have to do their own assessments to work out the best solution to the same problem in a different context.
This is partially because the car dealer lobby convinced congress to prevent the importation of cars less than 25 years old. Ironically, they did so using safety regulations, so a brand-new car meeting current European safety regulations is legally unsafe, but a 25-year-old car, complying with what European safety regulations were 25 years ago, less any deterioration in those safety systems, is legally safe.
Most rural routes are served by the USPS-proper.
I doubt they're driving from the passenger seat. It's hard to reach the pedals from the passenger seat. Many mail delivery vehicles in the US are right hand drive; the driver's seat is on the right. I don't know that left hand drive is strictly required by any states, it's more a matter of there's not many models available for sale in the US with right hand drive as an option, and few people order them when available; and importing out of market RHD cars is a chore.
You can (or could) order some Jeeps in RHD, and a lot of rural USPS contractors have RHD minivans (many from the Japanese Domestic Market)
I did see a 'converted' RHD Windstar (Ford minivan) on FB Marketplace, where they removed the driver seat, put a flat platform in, and connected controls with cables and levers. That's an option too, I guess.
Having some of the cheapest and most plentiful electricity in North America, courtesy giant hydroelectric facilities, helps. (Also why it's a major aluminum producer)
As an EV owner, crossing the border into Quebec from Ontario gives me about 5x the charging options. Everything from ski hills to grocery stores are set up with a mixture of charging types it's great. Get a 20 minute DC fast charge while running into the IGA to grab groceries and conveniences blew my mind.
There were a number of good EV charging ideas I saw on my road trip through Canada.
Electrify Canada was overall the best experience, though. No nonsense with installing a stupid custom app and setting up an account. Just tap credit card and go. Got full 150kW that my car can take. No hassle. Ate a burrito and returned to 80%.
The fact that large parts of the world do something without any problems is no guarantee that people in the U.S. won't argue about it endlessly.
What prevents "squatting" at a post (either with an EV or an ICE)?
Just thinking of my neighborhood (THs, not flats, but still no dedicated parking), there's a lamp every 4th or 5th home, and most households have ~2 cars. People mostly park in front of their house today - if you have an ICE, but also a lamppost, it's a negative - you no longer get use of the closest space (or, you take the EV spot from an EV).
The neighborhood solved this by allowing a charge cable to the spot closest to your house. But, that's expensive to install, so not many have done so (electrical panel on back of house, parking on front, so interior cable pull through finished space of home, charge unit on front exterior wall, then conduit through yard and public sidewalk for the cable run to parking). Of course, this doesn't help with apartment parking or true public street side parking (our neighborhood own the parking lot as a shared amenity).
I have seen those attached to light posts here in Germany but they all are in front of public area, not private houses so I guess it's only for charging, not parking.
In another point, if it's in front of a private property and the owner plan to occupy it for themselves, it would not make sense to install charger there as even when the owner is not charging, no one else can use.
This research seems to be inspired by the same content and appears to be an attempt to commercialise the same technology.
I guess an open question (at least for me) is whether, in an urban setting, it's better to install a dozen fast chargers, or hundreds of slower chargers – like two for all 100 street lamps in an area.
What's more useful? Particularly in areas where people do drive a bit (the school run, shopping, whatever) but don't drive that much (they use transit, no huge daily commutes).
For me (apartment, shared garage, hard to adapt) I guess a more easily available but slower charger that replenishes the few kms that I drive every other day during a night seems more useful than scheduling a couple hours on fast charger on the supermarket… just to get there and find it's unavailable.
But they only installed 30 chargers, so it'll be hard to draw conclusions.
It might turn out differently in the US, but it is hardly a new idea.
Maybe the available power for the circuit is equally divided between all the active chargers in the street. OR maybe only one charger allowed ?
This question seems not answered in the articale....
I have a double-charger at home. If I plug in one car, it gets 40 amps. When I plug in two, both cars get 20 amps until one finishes, then it does a 32/8 split with the charging car getting 32 amps and the idle car getting 8 amps.
Also worth noting that many towns in the US don't have street lamps or only have them in the CBD.
Commercial pole lights can be 120V but are usually 208V (for 208V 3-phase services) or 277V (for 480V 3-phase services) in practice.
Its a common misconception the US infrastructure is a 120V system. Your home has 240V and likely even has 240V appliances connected. Your individual outlets are only connected to one half of that 240V service.