If you own a single-family home, driving an electric vehicle can be a transcendent experience. Every morning when you wake up to a world of possibilities, your car is fully charged and ready to take you where you want to go.
Life with electric vehicles isn’t nearly as rosy if you don’t have access to a garage or driveway.
Many electric vehicle owners in large cities rely on public fast charging stations. Some people take it upon themselves to run cables from their homes to the curb, which can pose a safety risk. Some cities, such as Cambridge, Massachusetts, have formalized the practice and allow people to obtain permits to install wheelchair-accessible cable guards that span the sidewalk. It’s an experiment that replicates some of the amenities single-family homeowners enjoy, but it’s a temporary solution at best.
The low lamppost might be a better option: they’re everywhere and have all the wiring needed for seamless roadside charging. A New York City startup, Voltpost, has been working on a product that retrofits existing street lamp posts to enable electric vehicle charging. On Thursday, the company unveiled its lamppost charger after a year of design and development.
The device is essentially a cover that covers the lower part of the mast and contains all the electronics and cables needed to charge two to four electric vehicles at Level 2 speeds. While it’s not a quick charge, it’s more than enough to keep the battery charged overnight for most people.
An illustration of the main components of the Voltpost lamppost charger. Photo credit: Voltpost
Voltpost’s charger docks on the lamp post cover at hand height, and the retractable cord features an 8-foot anchor to keep it above the ground. The design is modular to facilitate repairs and upgrades, the company said. Charging station managers get access to customized software that allows them to control prices and monitor devices remotely.
As with almost every EV charging network, there is an app to monitor charging, including payments. Drivers can also use it to reserve chargers, an interesting twist on “dibs” or “savesies” that is certainly a convenience for drivers but could cause tension among neighbors.
According to Voltpost, the chargers can be installed quickly. In a test with the New York City Department of Transportation, the process took an hour to complete. It also said that there are projects in various stages of development and implementation in New York, Chicago and Detroit. The startup most recently raised a seed round of $3.6 million in July.