In my neighbourhood (London) there are now some charging ports coming out of lamp posts, and some coming out of the floor. There is a short cable required to connect the car to the charging port, but it's not too bad a trip hazard as it's only between the car and pavement.
EDIT: looks like this https://imgur.com/a/H9aqMCo
Lamp posts don't really exist in my city. All city street lights are hung from overhead cables wired between the residential buildings on the sides of the street/sidewalk.
Like this: https://www.google.com/maps/@47.0814083,15.4423363,3a,75y,24...
Another way to think about it is where does your car spend its time, 24 hours a day? Is there any time where you car is somewhere for an hour or more, sitting idle? That's where chargers should be.
- at work (need parking anyway)
- charge station with fast charge (not that different than gas stations, but slower)
My city has no lamp posts since sidewalks are too narrow. Lights are hung from overhead cabels between buildings.
>- at work (need parking anyway)
I don't drive my car to work anymore (thank god) but good luck forcing employers to spend money on installing enough charging stations for everyone. Some employers don't even have enough parking spaces for all employees so it's a game of music chairs already.
>- charge station with fast charge (not that different than gas stations, but slower)
Fast chargers are not ubiquitous yet, nor are EVs with it, especially affordable ones. And even EV fast charging is still much slower than filling a tank of gas in a cheap car.
It’s way easier and safer to charge an EV than to fill a gas car (electricity is everywhere), so you can expect the solutions to come progressively (with some bumps along the way of course)
It’s a good thing, EV will become a big part of the battery we need for a renewable grid, absorbing the excess electricity in period of overproduction.
In Tokyo it’s illegal to own a car unless you have a deviated car space near your apartment. Within 1km (if I’m not mistaken).
You must prove you have a space to rent (they will come an inspect it) before you can register.
Maybe a model like that should be introduced ?
No one owns a car in Tokyo and taxis and bikes are happy, it’s an incredible city to visit.
In my opinion, if people care about the environment, it needs to be bikes, and delivery / utility vehicles only. Everyone else should be on public transit.
Also European here. The problem for EV charging is gonna be the last mile, not the grid.
In my city, most of the residential streets where people live (in flats) are full of parked cars on both sides of the street. How will all those cars charge once they switch to EV? Will the already narrow sidewalks be full of charging stations next to each parking spot, and will pedestrians constantly be tripping over the charging cables? How will this work?
Currently all EV owners here are well off people who own their houses in the suburbs or in rural areas, and can install their own chargers at home for their EVs, but how will the people living in flats who have to park on the street charge their cars?
Ideally, we'd get rid of private cars in the city completely and replace them with better public transport and cycling infrastructure but looking at the real life facts, there's no political will to push car owners out of car ownership, and car owners are by far a majority of the voting population, even among the low earners.
Also, regarding the last mile charging infrastructure stations, another one of their weaknesses compared to filling up with gas at a gas station, is that they suck, the payment models sucks, and the UX sucks and they often have faults or are broken making them unusable. MKBHD did a video on this which proves this point and is worth a watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA2qJKU8t2k