EV INFRASTRUCTURE |
removing legislative barriers and through
connecting innovators together, with funding
and know how. This approach has been twinned
with similar legislative changes and incentive
programs as in Norway and the UK.
“Both Norway and the Netherlands have
applied a good mix of financial incentives and
removing barriers of non-financial nature such
as easy application procedures for installation,
special lanes for EVs, and incentivising
ridesharing, for example.”
Infrastructure
Range and cost remain a disincentive to early
or even medium-term adoption, which could
result in a slow roll out of the sort of charging
infrastructure sufficient to feed the hungry
vehicles expected to fill European roads in the
next few years. This chicken and egg scenario
could have an impact on both industry profits
and the ability of systems to cope, no matter
how integrated or ‘smart’ they may be.
Enevoldson is more optimistic: “While it
is difficult, we should avoid thinking of EV
charging as a ‘chicken and egg’ problem that
requires thousands of chargers to be installed
everywhere before EV adoption takes off.
Instead, the EV industry needs to think of
charging as a ‘hot dog and bun’ problem: as
we keep adding more chargers, people will
keep buying more cars and the ratio will
even out over time.
“At ChargePoint we traditionally grow 15-
20% ahead of market growth for EVs. That is
what the market is driving. Government activity
and consumer demand for EVs are the driving
force behind this.”
Kevin Pugh, UK and Ireland business
development manager at Tritium, is of the
opinion that there are many years of transition
for fuel-station forecourts ahead: “The nature of
evolving a fuel-heavy site from petrol and diesel
into one incorporating or exclusively offering
EV charging will happen only with a planned
transitional model. Charging will be on the
perimeter to begin with, but as volumes change
and EVs become ubiquitous, redundant fuel
storage will be replaced with electric.
“The larger convenience-ready forecourts
with retail and café offerings are already
perfectly suited to EV charging and en-route
high-power charging, as are motorway service
stations,” Pugh adds. “It’s worth noting, however,
that there are about 40 million vehicles on UK
roads and we have some 9,000 petrol stations
handling that volume, and that EV charging
won’t take place only on forecourts. Home
and workplace charging is ideal for daily work
commuters and inner-city, low-mileage round
trips. I expect this will remain the crown holder
for the largest percentage of low power throughthe
day/night charging. It makes sense. You plug
in and forget until you have to drive again.”
Could a massive rise in EVs on the roads of
Europe put an unbearable strain on the grid?
050 Intertraffic World | Annual Showcase 2020
Pop-up street charging
Retractable charge
points can be used
overnight without
cluttering the street
during the day
Although charging at home or at work
are solutions, they are not always
possible. In the UK, for example, 43%
of households have no off-street parking
to enable charging. A quarter of all drivers
(50% in large cities) park on-street at night,
so that is eight million drivers who will be
looking for a convenient charging solution.
In Europe, an even higher proportion of
drivers live in apartments and park onstreet,
and there are 109m on-street
parking spaces across Europe.
As an answer, Startup Urban Electric
has developed UEone pop-up charging
hub, an app-operated retractable charging
solution. Designed primarily for residential
streets and for public parking and charging
bays, the hubs will typically be deployed as
six chargers at a time in a row on one side
of the street. They offer convenience and
dependability (certainty of availability of a
charge point, compared to say lamp post
chargers which are isolated charge points).
Each pop-up charge point delivers 7kW,
more than sufficient to fully charge any
electric vehicle overnight, and is OCPP, so
can be connected to any charging network.
The reason they are retractable is so
that when not in use during the day, they
do not cause street clutter or obstruct
the pavement, something that both local
authorities and residents are insistent upon.
Not only that, by shifting EV charging to the
main off-peak period – overnight – we are
helping to manage the grid, and with smart
charging, no grid upgrades will be required,
the carbon content of electricity is lowest
at night and so is the price. It is in many
ways the ideal solution and a win-win for
everyone concerned. The company recently
installed a prototype pop-up charging hub in
Oxford, and with a further 18 demonstrator
hubs agreed for installation in Dundee and
Plymouth in 2020.
“Charging infrastructure is perceived as
being the primary barrier to EV adoption,”
says Keith Johnston, cofounder of Urban
Electric. “However, the price/lease price of
EVs also has to come down to price parity
with traditional ICE cars, or thereabouts,
before we hit a tipping point. This is
predicted to happen within the next three to
five years, starting with the more expensive
cars and tricking down quickly after that.
“The range of EVs probably has to
increase to around 250-300 miles as well
in order to go mainstream. We already have
electric cars that can do this, and demand
already outstrips supply for these models.
We will see a surge in the number of rapid
charging hubs in the coming years, and so
the question of charging infrastructure
is to all intents and purposes about to be
solved. Now it is up to the manufacturers
to accelerate the introduction of their full
electric vehicles.”
It is our view that the next generation of EVs will use DC
charging technology. Indeed, it is DC that is best suited to
delivering faster rates of charging and we’re seeing this with the next
generation of vehicles coming to market
Adrian Keen, CEO, InstaVolt