this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2024
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[–] Fridgeratr@lemmy.world 78 points 10 months ago (6 children)

At a charger, probably. I'm no expert though.

[–] sizzler@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Someone doesn't know what British (European) streets are like.

[–] Joelk111@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I don't need to. Is there a way to charge EVs there? Then EVs will likely be charged there. Is there not a way to charge EVs there? Then EVs probably won't be charged there.

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[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 24 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Ffs, can we please please stop the car centric city? Can we please invest in public transportation, bicycle lanes everywhere, and walkable neighborhoods?

Climate change hats this one little trick where we don't design cities to be car dependent hellscapes, and it's good for your (mental) health too!

[–] inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

FFS can we please acknowledge reality that cars are not going anywhere anytime soon and that cars are going to be a part of the solution along with the expansion of public transportation and bike lanes that doesn't get people killed and city planning around less urban sprawl and stop treating this stuff like it's a zero sum game.

[–] Adanisi@lemmy.zip 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

This is an article posted by the BBC, in the UK.

Our cities are perfectly walkable, and we have public transport links.

[–] itsprobablyfine@sh.itjust.works 6 points 10 months ago

Having lived in the US with publicly run transit and in the UK with privately run transit I'd say there's a lot of 'it depends' you're glossing over here. Very city dependent

[–] randomaside@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 10 months ago

I'm actually really interested in this as a project I would like to understand what it would take to get this done. The scope creep in planning seems simply astronomical and I would like to know who the authorities are on city design at the moment.

I also think there is a cynical side to me that thinks that all the people who do city design take the money they make and dump it into a mc mansion out in the burbs anyway so the motivation of individuals with these skills seems skewed.

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[–] tonyn@lemmy.ml 20 points 10 months ago (9 children)

Not looking forward to sidewalks and curbs covered in a tangle of car charger cables.

[–] Nusm@lemmy.zip 13 points 10 months ago

A tangle of cables? I’ll feel right at home! …and right at work! 🤣

[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

It would be nice if more manufacturers would put multiple charge ports on cars. Most only have one. And I don’t think anyone is doing more than 2.

Having one on each corner would be dope and would reduce the length of cord that often needs to be run.

[–] ExLisper@linux.community 3 points 10 months ago

That's because all cars can park facing in any direction. Now drivers, that's another story...

[–] Hule@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

I instantly saw a car parked sideways and charging on both ends..

I have a dirty mind.

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[–] GadgeteerZA@fedia.io 16 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

@boem@lemmy.world home owners would certainly charge their EVs at home, so the issue really is for those in apartment blocks. By us most apartment blocks have reserved/paid bays, so I'd imagine it must be possible to fit pop-up type chargers? I'd expect apartment blocks would have to make a plan of sorts to meet car owners halfway. After all, if you buy/rent any apartment today, it normally has electricity wired (and water piped, and often Internet connected) to the unit. Why not the same for a parking bay?

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] node815@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

I live in a suburb of Portland and in an apartment. Our management is nice enough to provide a covered space (a luxury!) for a single car. I got to thinking about EV's and if all of a sudden everyone here was driving them, there would be no place to charge them, but then why not place a charger in front of each parking space? Problem solved. Then, the managers would probably assess an additional fee on top of the already high rents for monthly charging privileges.

Living in this area does have it's advantages, you can drive just a short distance to the local library and hit up the chargers, there, or go to the stores and always find an open charger or two

I get and will readily admit that most cities don't have this so I appreciate the concern over EV charging stations. I don't know much about them as I drive a dinosaur powered Honda so it's not yet in my radar. :)

[–] steal_your_face@lemmy.ml 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

In lots of cities most people live in apartments with only street parking. Hopefully public transit will grow to fill the needs of people living in dense cities, though.

[–] GadgeteerZA@fedia.io 2 points 10 months ago

@steal_your_face@lemmy.ml yes by us, most have parking allocation at a cost per parking bay. But yes, if no parking bays then the City should be providing better public transport. The first prize is to actually have less private cars on the road, through efficient and safe public transport.

@boem@lemmy.world

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 13 points 10 months ago

Not an exotheric notion.

Besides special purpose built charging spots, available in the streets, my country is incentivizing the instalation of charging spots in supermarkets, shopping malls and regular gas stations.

Residential buildings have incentives to install charging spots and I've read that new construction has to have it by default.

It is doable. In extremis, regular street light posts can be retrofitted with the necessary hardware.

[–] fhqwgads@possumpat.io 10 points 10 months ago

I would love to see chargers more incentivized at workplaces. As solar becomes more common charging during the day is going to make more sense than night. There are already ways to track charging costs and bill them out or just consider it a job perk. Most people don't need to charge 300 miles a day so even if every single employee drives an EV you probably only need to install enough chargers for somewhere like ¼ of the cars on site. Yes some people need to drive for work, but there are a lot of cars that sit all day and could be running on solar instead of charging off something else at night instead.

[–] doppelgangmember@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago

Convert the Office buildings into charging/parking garages 😎 /s

[–] Dremor@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago (8 children)

At home? Not like we are lacking electric outlets.

[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago (2 children)

The problem is apartments without garages or without parking lots. See San Francisco, New York, etc.

[–] laurelraven@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 10 months ago (3 children)

My understanding is that most people like that in those cities don't have cars because mass transit there is actually quite good, and keeping a car is excessively expensive for something they'll rarely need

[–] TheDarksteel94@sopuli.xyz 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Things work differently in the US lol

[–] laurelraven@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 10 months ago

I mean, I was specifically referring to those two cities in the US because the comment I was responding to was mentioning them

[–] stankmut@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

I think it's mostly true in New York, but that's the only city where I've heard that.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

Unfortunately all too many still do. I’ve known people in NYC who have cars, even if they rarely need them. When I lived in Boston, I needed a car despite using transit for all daily trips: some weeks I only used the car to move it for street cleaning

[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

A lot of people in those cities don’t have cars, but a lot do. Especially in the San Francisco Bay Area, which has worse public transportation than NY.

Speaking as someone born and raised in SF, a shit load of apartment dwellers have cars. There are so many cars that you often can’t find a parking space near your building in the residential parts of town. Honestly, the main reason people get rid of their car is because the city has hit peak car capacity. You have to spend 30-60m looking for a spot in the vicinity of home.

[–] Dremor@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Fair enough. One of the downsides of high rise buildings.

[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Depends on the city. That’s not true for SF.

The parts of town with high rises are WAY easier to park in. They all have parking garages connected to the building. It’s places like the Haight and the Mission that are terrible - mostly residential neighborhoods with 2 story single family homes. Maybe a few 3 story apartment buildings.

Many were converted into apartments and may have even had garages converted into a living space. So now you have neighborhoods with homes that were originally designed to hold 1 or 2 cars, but now they have 3 or more cars - and they may not even have a garage anymore.

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[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This is the best summary I could come up with:


A big advantage of repurposing existing lampposts is that cities don't have to dig in order to lay new cables, says Artis Markots, the chief executive of the Latvian start-up SimpleCharge, which is focusing on Central and Eastern Europe.

Trojan Energy is a Scottish company whose chargers sit flush with the pavement, resembling miniature manhole covers from the outside.

The UK company Nyobolt recently created Bolt-ee, a compact, ultra-rapid charger that can provide up to 300kW of DC power to charge a car within minutes.

Fully mobile charging could be useful for people with disabilities, says Liana Cipcigan, a professor of transport electrification and smart grids at Cardiff University's School of Engineering.

In terms of fire risks, Mr Shivareddy says that Nyobolt has carefully designed Bolt-ee to be ultra-efficient, and thus to generate very little waste heat.

As Prof Cipcigan says, there is much space for innovation in the EV charging market, and younger and smaller companies "could make an interesting impact on this very complex landscape".


The original article contains 1,108 words, the summary contains 167 words. Saved 85%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] Tosti@feddit.nl 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

It will be interesting to know if the cables for these things can handle the load. On an individual level probable, but on larger scale?

[–] lnxtx@feddit.nl 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

If we change all street lighting to the LEDs, it will save about 200-250 W per pole. That's peanuts for the thirsty EVs.

Why not fast charge at the existing petrol stations? I know! Convenience.

[–] Fogle@lemmy.ca 6 points 10 months ago

Putting fast chargers at the gas stations going across empty highways is huge for ev travel

[–] scops@reddthat.com 3 points 10 months ago

On a hot day sitting in a parking lot, my Model 3 loses about 10% of its charge just cooling the battery. I am lucky to have the ability to charge at home so I don't have to worry about it, but if I was living in an apartment, I'd have constant anxiety about it discharging and not being ready when I need it. It's doable, but having to plan out an extra 20-30 minutes plus travel time to hit a charger, that's a fairly significant change to routine.

That said, yes, more EV charging at gas stations please. It's critical for road trips.

[–] wilberfan@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

It will be interesting to know if the cables for these things will be stolen for their copper or other metals on a regular basis.

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