New York City pilot aims to improve access to charging for urban drivers

In many dense cities, EV adoption is up against an intractable problem: many car owners lack garages, driveways, or even assigned parking spaces, so they have no option of installing charging at their homes. New York City recently launched a pilot to tackle this problem by demonstrating how access to charging could be improved for the 50% of residents that park their cars on-street.

Above: A Tesla charging on the street. Photo: Rick Govic / Unsplash

London authorities have been exploring innovative solutions to the Plight of the Drivewayless for a couple of years now, so it’s not surprising that two of the vendors New York chose to deliver on-street EV chargers for the pilot are based in the UK: Connected Kerb, which makes a charger that can be integrated into street furniture such as bollards; and Char.gy, which makes a charger that is incorporated into a lamppost. A third vendor, New York-based Voltpost, also makes a lamppost-compatible charger.

The findings from the pilot will inform wider EV charging rollouts across New York City, which has set a goal of installing 10,000 curbside chargers by 2030, and electrifying 20% of municipal parking bays by 2025.

Connected Kerb has selected Charge Infrastructure, a division of Charge Enterprises (Nasdaq: CRGE), as its preferred installation provider for this project.

Connected Kerb’s power supply is installed below ground, which offers greater protection and allows more plug sockets to be added above ground as demand grows.

Connected Kerb is currently exploring locations at the Brooklyn Navy Yard for a “living lab” that will demonstrate the company’s “smart city” infrastructure—the company’s chargers also support a number of IoT (Internet of Things), telecommunication applications, air quality sensors, etc.

Steve Richardson and Nick Dobie, Co-Founders of Connected Kerb, said: “There are around two million light-duty vehicles in New York City, accounting for 80% of transport emissions. The DOT has established ambitious goals to eliminate these emissions by boosting EV adoption, and The DOT Studio project will provide crucial a blueprint for how to deliver world-leading charging infrastructure to support that goal.”

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This article originally appeared in Charged. Author: Charles Morris. Source: Connected Kerb