> 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?