It’s funny how rare it is for people to realise the obvious - that the chargers should be in the road, not taking the little amount of public space not given to cars

(Of course outside london driving and parking on the pavement is the norm so it’s a moot point)

> parking on the pavement is the norm

It is, in some streets where I live. I've complained about it - it's against the law. Well, it's a law that apparently can be circumvented by local byelaws, and the Council's claim is that the residents have nowhere else to park.

Well, that's true; they don't. But then they shouldn't be buying/renting a home with no parking! The Council is an idiot; the left hand says there's too much traffic in this town, the right hand says that residents with no parking should be allowed to park on the footway. This Council is run by an executive committee, the only (purported) benefit of which is joined-up decision-making.

> It’s funny how rare it is for people to realise the obvious - that the chargers should be in the road, not taking the little amount of public space not given to cars

Work has already started on the tech to allow this. They plan on using wireless charging. Mostly it's planned for supermarkets and what not just now, but I suspect it'll get added to standard roads over time. The main issue is getting car manufacturers to support it but they seem to be looking to add it over the next few years.

This makes me think about installing wireless chargers down the center of lanes so you charge while you drive.

Chargers should be by the road, not in the road, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be designed to minimize their intrusion. Such as integrated charge points in lamp poles, or ones that rise out of the ground or ones that drop from telephone poles.

Doesn't have to be so complicated, simply put them on the parking space.

charging tech will advance quickly over the coming years and whatever is put in the road today will need to be replaced.

Electric cars get about 3-4 miles per kWh and efficiency is only going to get better, not worse. People aren't expected to drive substantially more in distance than they already do. So the overall energy needs of electric cars aren't really expected to go up. There's immense demand for improvements in range, but that's just a buffer; overall mileage (and therefore energy consumption) isn't expected to change.

Cars also spend most of their time parked, and this isn't expected to change either. So ordinary 7kW AC chargers are adequate, and expected to remain adequate, at places where cars spend most of their time parked such as at homes and car parks.

Therefore, there's basically no reason to expect a regular 7kW AC Type 2 electric charger to be obsoleted in the future. Just as a typical home in the UK hasn't needed its 100A incoming supply upgraded in a long time either.

Rapid charging demand is very different. This is relevant for places like motorway service stations, and where electric car owners don't have a charger at home and have to charge en-route. But if anything the demand for rapid charging will go down in urban areas as "slower" chargers increase in density in places where cars are typically parked. That leaves places like service stations. These will probably need to be upgraded regularly as you suggest, but that's a very different proposition to having to repeatedly upgrade every lamp post.

I would like to see every parking space at a hotel have a slow charger.

AC charging won't really change over the next couple decades. There's limits to how much power you can supply from a house, and essentially all AC charging is basically fancy extension cables.

That sounds dangerous?

> The solutions I've seen are part of a never decreasing blight on the urban landscape. It should be within our grasp to design these more sympathetically.

Charging stations vary in sizes. I've seen some really small ones. But I've also seen really large units.

But the issue so much the size of the units, it's that the streets of the UK aren't exactly well designed in the first place. And now they're adding extra things which were never met to be there in the first place. It's not the units that need work, it's the british cities that are footpaths or varying sizes next ot each other, not enough room to drive and park. Many streets it's basically one way traffic because there is only enough room for one car at a time.

> Many streets it's basically one way traffic because there is only enough room for one car at a time.

My street is like this. The problem is there are already too many cars. We have a constant flow of traffic 12 hours of the day and most of this is people using our street as a rat run or as a free alternative to parking all day in the town centre which is less than a mile a way. A couple of times I've seen people park outside our house using two spaces (intentionally so no one can park in front or behind) and then pulling out a bike.

We have a driveway but it's not uncommon for somone to park in front of it and block you in so not entirely reliable.

The chances of any suitable charging points for actual residents being developed in such situations are near to none.

A solution to this would be for fewer people to have a personal vehicle parked outside their house all the time.

Perhaps a first step could be self driving to and from a car park near your house. You ‘hail’ your car via an app / button in your house.

We could then get rid of parking on residential streets and reclaim parked-over pavements for pedestrians.

Wireless charging has the lowest footprint and is the best option when there isn't much room, though not many EVs can charge wirelessly yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq7SP18sPKw

Pop-up chargers are at least hidden when not in use: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frkw6aurVUY

Utility pole chargers do a good job of staying out of the way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjiR-Wz_Z8s

It should work while you drive, F-Zero style.

100%. Footpaths should be reserved for people. Parking (as someone pointed out), utility poles, charging points, even bike parking, etc should be put there only as an absolute last resort. Unfortunately this is almost never the case.

Others are thinking about high tech solution to this, but as a start whenever there is on street parking just reserve 10cm between some of them and put all the utilities there.

We could also do with much less signage, outside of the ones for the speed limits (we would need a lot less of them with a 30km/h speed limit in cities… but I digress), road type (one way) and hazards I struggle to think of any others that is useful.

The ones they put in here are between 40-60cm wide for reasons I can't fathom.

I had my garden remodelled with a private parking space. And when I had an electrician in, I had him install cabling to the parking space, so that an EV charger could be installed (the sparks also provided a fuse-box for the charger).

I moved out. I now let that home, and my tenant doesn't drive; so he doesn't drive an EV. If he did, I'd have my sparks install a charger at no cost to my tenant.

I also would object to obelisks blocking the footway. There's already too much crap blocking the footway (recycling bins; electric scooters). The crap makes people angry - especially blind people. Doesn't surprise me at all.

They’re putting them in lampposts, presumably right next to the street/cars.