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As someone living in a very old and rustic street, I don't see my municipality placing an aesthetically unpleasing charging point every 6 meters. We need better

As someone living in a very old and rustic street, I don't see my municipality placing an aesthetically unpleasing charging point every 6 meters. We need better solutions than what we have now. Induction charging, connection points underneath the car, pantograph.

grecy 7y ago
> I don't see my municipality placing an aesthetically unpleasing charging point every 6 meters. I'm sure people used to say the same thing about fire hydrants, above ground electricity poles and wires, and fibre hanging from utility poles. I think you're underestimating what happens when there is a genuine need for a thing.
- arethuza 7y ago
  Fire hydrants here in the UK are almost always under the road surface - that would actually probably be the logical place to install electrical charging outlets.
  - Reason077 7y ago
    It turns out a good place for "on street" urban chargers is in lamp posts. They already have electrical connections and chargers can be retrofitted easily. For example: https://www.ubitricity.co.uk https://www.ubitricity.co.uk
    - arethuza 7y ago
      The last two streets I lived on in central Edinburgh only had lamp posts at one side but parking at both sides. Checking on Google Maps I reckon there is only enough lamp posts to charge 1 in 6 cars on the side of streets that do have them. Good idea though - but I suspect other things will be required as well.
      - Reason077 7y ago
        One charger can charge many cars. Especially if you designate the parking spots near the posts as reserved for EV charging. Once you have a significant portion/majority of cars on a street being electric, then yes, demand may exceed what can be supplied by the posts. But, at least for the next few years, EVs are still a minority in most cities.
- powvans 7y ago
  Above ground electricity poles and wires are still ugly. In my opinion areas where the infrastructure is all buried are much more aesthetically pleasing and calming. It’s also safer. No risk of electrocution by downed lines or starting fires in windstorms.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 7y ago
    Underground junction boxes can get water in them. In a previous apartment I lived at in one exploded about half a block away, blew the manhole cover off clear down the block (a few hundred feet) and lit on fire. There's still some risk. Maybe not as much, but weatherproofing is still hard.
- systemtest 7y ago
  We don't have fire hydrants (water is pumped from nearby canals / ditches) or above ground electricity / fiber / cable (as this is a first world country). We like to keep things looking nice and authentic.
  - jsight 7y ago
    If you like things to look perfectly authentic, how do you have modern cars parked every 6m?
- salawat 7y ago
  I think you're underestimating the inertia of deploying beefier electrical grids with even more charging points, and the nuances of billing and metering. It isn't as easy as just making an outlet or inductive charger every 6m. That infrastructure has to be owned, installed, upkept, maintained, and subsidized by someone. Unless you think that all that power grid interfacing is just going to be paid for by someone else. The flippant optimism that things will all just happen and ignoring of the potential for underlying complications beyond those immediately apparent is incredibly grating to those who have to actually trouble themselves with working through them. The idea of a single charging point per 6m doesn't even account for the sudden logistic complexity where the entire extended family all piles into the place and realizes that oops, we all have to charge here, but the local node is already saturated most of the time by locals because the engineers didn't foresee the need to provision for that type of surge in demand. In comparison, gasoline dispensing is a relatively straight forward affair that doesn't put any excessive new loading on already heavily loaded infrastructure systems responsible for running everything else in our lives in the same way battery charging does. Unlike software, settling for "good enough" isn't trivially solved by an OTA update. Hell, software isn't always that great about that either once the level of safety-criticality gets high-enough. The joke that is self-driving system development aside.
  - grecy 7y ago
    I understand that it's going to be very difficult, and it's going to take years, but that's no reason to not do it. Gasoline dispensing is extremely complicated - what you really mean is that the complexity is just hidden from you and has been optimized on for decades. Next time you fill your car with ~15 gallons (60L), have a think about how many gallons of diesel must have been burnt to get that gas you're pumping. Have a think about all the machinery involved in making it, transporting it and then you pumping it. Trucks, oil tankers, more trucks, pumps, etc. Have a think about how differently we would think if we had to physically carry our own 15 gallons of carcinogenic explosive liquid every time we wanted to enable us to drive ~350 (550km) miles. The system we have works very well, but it's terrible in every way.
    - salawat 7y ago
adrianN 7y ago
Maybe they'll place aesthetically pleasing charging points every 6m instead.
- fyfy18 7y ago
  Further to this, electric car chargers can be as discrete as bollards, for example: https://maps.app.goo.gl/haaRo1Zq2juyP1ZRA https://maps.app.goo.gl/haaRo1Zq2juyP1ZRA (Behind the SUV if the link doesn't work)
cerberusss 7y ago
I live in an old and rustic street. The municipality is first and foremost focused on decreasing emissions, thus aesthetics have taken a backseat, and charging points are on every street.
zelos 7y ago
In London they've started putting them in lamposts. Basically a small, discreet plug socket with a cover.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  Those are unfortunately slow chargers. Now imagine just 50% of the cars being electric and how the infrastructure needs to change to support this... Free electricity how? It needs some sort of a payment system too. Probably contactless.
  - stephenwilcock 7y ago
    Behold, ubitricity, the future. I have this for my EV and it works great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKaEhBjt1ls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKaEhBjt1ls
amluto 7y ago
Most cities have little stubby ugly things next to every parking spot already: parking meters. It wouldn’t be entirely crazy to convert most meters to combination meter-and-chargers. That being said, it’s the overnight parking that needs charging, and maybe the employee parking. Charging while shopping isn’t that useful unless the charger is very fast, and those very fast chargers tend to be rather more expensive than home charging.

grecy 7y ago

> I don't see my municipality placing an aesthetically unpleasing charging point every 6 meters. I'm sure people used to say the same thing about fire hydrants, above ground electricity poles and wires, and fibre hanging from utility poles. I think you're underestimating what happens when there is a genuine need for a thing.

arethuza 7y ago
Fire hydrants here in the UK are almost always under the road surface - that would actually probably be the logical place to install electrical charging outlets.
- Reason077 7y ago
  It turns out a good place for "on street" urban chargers is in lamp posts. They already have electrical connections and chargers can be retrofitted easily. For example: https://www.ubitricity.co.uk https://www.ubitricity.co.uk
  - arethuza 7y ago
    The last two streets I lived on in central Edinburgh only had lamp posts at one side but parking at both sides. Checking on Google Maps I reckon there is only enough lamp posts to charge 1 in 6 cars on the side of streets that do have them. Good idea though - but I suspect other things will be required as well.
    - Reason077 7y ago
      One charger can charge many cars. Especially if you designate the parking spots near the posts as reserved for EV charging. Once you have a significant portion/majority of cars on a street being electric, then yes, demand may exceed what can be supplied by the posts. But, at least for the next few years, EVs are still a minority in most cities.
powvans 7y ago
Above ground electricity poles and wires are still ugly. In my opinion areas where the infrastructure is all buried are much more aesthetically pleasing and calming. It’s also safer. No risk of electrocution by downed lines or starting fires in windstorms.
- SAI_Peregrinus 7y ago
  Underground junction boxes can get water in them. In a previous apartment I lived at in one exploded about half a block away, blew the manhole cover off clear down the block (a few hundred feet) and lit on fire. There's still some risk. Maybe not as much, but weatherproofing is still hard.
systemtest 7y ago
We don't have fire hydrants (water is pumped from nearby canals / ditches) or above ground electricity / fiber / cable (as this is a first world country). We like to keep things looking nice and authentic.
- jsight 7y ago
  If you like things to look perfectly authentic, how do you have modern cars parked every 6m?
salawat 7y ago
I think you're underestimating the inertia of deploying beefier electrical grids with even more charging points, and the nuances of billing and metering. It isn't as easy as just making an outlet or inductive charger every 6m. That infrastructure has to be owned, installed, upkept, maintained, and subsidized by someone. Unless you think that all that power grid interfacing is just going to be paid for by someone else. The flippant optimism that things will all just happen and ignoring of the potential for underlying complications beyond those immediately apparent is incredibly grating to those who have to actually trouble themselves with working through them. The idea of a single charging point per 6m doesn't even account for the sudden logistic complexity where the entire extended family all piles into the place and realizes that oops, we all have to charge here, but the local node is already saturated most of the time by locals because the engineers didn't foresee the need to provision for that type of surge in demand. In comparison, gasoline dispensing is a relatively straight forward affair that doesn't put any excessive new loading on already heavily loaded infrastructure systems responsible for running everything else in our lives in the same way battery charging does. Unlike software, settling for "good enough" isn't trivially solved by an OTA update. Hell, software isn't always that great about that either once the level of safety-criticality gets high-enough. The joke that is self-driving system development aside.
- grecy 7y ago
  I understand that it's going to be very difficult, and it's going to take years, but that's no reason to not do it. Gasoline dispensing is extremely complicated - what you really mean is that the complexity is just hidden from you and has been optimized on for decades. Next time you fill your car with ~15 gallons (60L), have a think about how many gallons of diesel must have been burnt to get that gas you're pumping. Have a think about all the machinery involved in making it, transporting it and then you pumping it. Trucks, oil tankers, more trucks, pumps, etc. Have a think about how differently we would think if we had to physically carry our own 15 gallons of carcinogenic explosive liquid every time we wanted to enable us to drive ~350 (550km) miles. The system we have works very well, but it's terrible in every way.
  - salawat 7y ago

adrianN 7y ago

Maybe they'll place aesthetically pleasing charging points every 6m instead.

fyfy18 7y ago
Further to this, electric car chargers can be as discrete as bollards, for example: https://maps.app.goo.gl/haaRo1Zq2juyP1ZRA https://maps.app.goo.gl/haaRo1Zq2juyP1ZRA (Behind the SUV if the link doesn't work)

cerberusss 7y ago

I live in an old and rustic street. The municipality is first and foremost focused on decreasing emissions, thus aesthetics have taken a backseat, and charging points are on every street.

zelos 7y ago

In London they've started putting them in lamposts. Basically a small, discreet plug socket with a cover.

AstralStorm 7y ago
Those are unfortunately slow chargers. Now imagine just 50% of the cars being electric and how the infrastructure needs to change to support this... Free electricity how? It needs some sort of a payment system too. Probably contactless.
- stephenwilcock 7y ago
  Behold, ubitricity, the future. I have this for my EV and it works great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKaEhBjt1ls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKaEhBjt1ls

amluto 7y ago

Most cities have little stubby ugly things next to every parking spot already: parking meters. It wouldn’t be entirely crazy to convert most meters to combination meter-and-chargers. That being said, it’s the overnight parking that needs charging, and maybe the employee parking. Charging while shopping isn’t that useful unless the charger is very fast, and those very fast chargers tend to be rather more expensive than home charging.