Pop-up EV charge points set for Oxford trial

Pop-up EV charge points set for Oxford trial

By
Zapmap
Published

Urban Electric has launched the UEone – a new pop-up EV charge point for residential on-street charging – and will undergo trials in Oxford.

The £600,000 project will see Oxford City Council and Urban Electric involved in testing the EV charge point, which retracts underground when not in use. Able to charge at up to 5.8 kW, the charger minimises the amount of ‘street furniture’ when not in use, but still provides on-street recharging options.

It needs only 405mm of depth under the pavement surface to be installed, and as such Urban Electric reckons it is suitable for more than 90% of residential streets.

Access is via the same SmartCable that is used with Ubitricity lamp post chargers, which lets users set up an account and pay for the electricity used. There is no need for an RFID card or app access.

The trial is co-funded by the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK, following a successful £474,000 bid led by Urban Electric, in partnership with Duku and Oxford City Council. A total of 20 new charge points will be installed later this year as part of the trial, which will run for 15 months.

Susan Brown, Leader at Oxford City Council, said: “We are thrilled that we will be trialling the world’s first pop-up electric vehicle charging points and that Urban Electric is bringing us this exciting new technology to encourage more residents to switch to electric vehicles.”

Urban Electric co-founder Olivier Freeling-Wilkinson, said: “The most convenient, affordable and climate-friendly way to charge an EV from the grid is at home at night, yet up to 85% of households in some urban residential areas cannot do so because they park on-street, acting as a barrier to EV adoption.

“By installing an over-supply of pop-up charge points in a street from day one we will give certainty of access to a home-based charge point in residential parking zones, so that local authorities can enable the 11.6m UK households currently excluded from driving zero emission to make the switch.”

Ian Meikle, Innovate UK Director Clean Growth and Infrastructure, said: “Improving air quality in cities right across the world is a huge challenge but also a huge opportunity for UK businesses, which is why Innovate UK and the Government’s Industrial Strategy are supporting projects like this one in Oxford.

“Making sure we have the right infrastructure to encourage more people to switch to electric vehicles is a key part of meeting the air quality challenge and if successful, this exciting project has the potential to be rolled out across the whole country, so we’re very interested to see how it progresses.”

Once live, you will be able to find the new retractable charge points on Zap-Map. Until then, you can find other EV charge points in Oxford by heading to the desktop map or Zap-Map app.

Find EV charge points here

urban-electric-ueone-pop--charge-point