Sprint Power is currently developing a series of wireless charging models for a government-backed trial in Nottingham, with this to demonstrate the suitability of wireless charging for a fleet of electric taxis.
Specifically, Sprint Power is developing an electrical distribution system, a power distribution module and a high voltage harness assembly that will enable the taxis to charge wirelessly via pads attached to the ground.
Ben Russell, commercial director at Sprint Power, explained to Current± that the trial is focused on fleet vehicles such as taxis that have a low dwell time, with wireless charging able to help further the electrification of these vehicles.
For taxis, charging can be an issue particularly at taxi ranks. Russell gave the example of a taxi pulling into a taxi rank, plugging in to a charger and then as it moves up the rank, unplug and plug into the next one.
“It’s just not going to be something you’re going to see drivers warming to,” he said. “It’s an extra headache that they don’t want to have to deal with.”
There’s therefore a need to cater for the needs of these types of fleet drivers who need to charge wherever and whenever they can. While many fleets have the opportunity to charge overnight, those such as taxis don’t necessarily have that eight hour window overnight, particularly as some taxi drivers will share their vehicle with other drivers.
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A survey from electric vehicle (EV) and energy tariff price comparison site Love my EV has highlighted the savings of EV tariffs despite a prevailing lack of awareness.
A fifth of EV drivers surveyed weren’t aware of EV-friendly energy tariffs, and the majority of those that had heard of the tariffs weren’t signed up to one. The main reasons for this were not knowing enough about them (24%) or how to compare them to find the best option (20%).
Indeed, a third of EV drivers hadn’t changed energy provider or tariff since purchasing their vehicle. However, Love my EV found that EV drivers could save £92 million a year by switching to a dedicated EV energy tariff.
Charging with an Ohme smart charging cable
“There are more and more dedicated EV energy tariffs available, as energy suppliers compete for drivers making the transition away from polluting petrol and diesel engines,” Mat Thomson, co-founder of Love my EV, said.
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Electric vehicle (EV) charging network company InstaVolt has announced a significant expansion, pledging to install 10,000 chargers by 2030.
This follows the network experiencing record month-on-month growth since lockdown restrictions in the UK eased earlier this year.
It now has 1,000 chargers either active, in construction or in the advanced stages of development, making it the UK’s largest owner-operated public rapid network. This has been aided by a number of significant partnerships recently, including with McDonalds and Costa Coffee where it has begun to roll out its new 120kW charging units.
Instavolt rapid charger at McDonalds (Image: Instavolt)
Speaking of the commitment, InstaVolt’s chief executive officer, Adrian Keen said the company is already on track to deliver or exceed its earlier pledge of 5,000 rapid chargers by 2025.
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The Department for Transport (DfT) has today (9 September) announced changes to several electric vehicle (EV) charging schemes alongside the launch of a new app.
Aiming to provide additional support to small businesses and renters to install EV chargepoints, the DfT has opened up the Workplace Charging Scheme and Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme to new participants.
The move will see small businesses such as B&Bs gain access to the Workplace Charging Scheme, with an aim of supporting the UK tourism industry and improving access to rural areas.
The Workplace Charging Scheme offers support towards the upfront costs of the purchase and installation of EV chargepoints for eligible businesses, charities and public sector organisations.
IONITY rapid charge points at Leeds Skelton Lake Services (Image: IONITY)
The changes announced today will also see those in leasehold and rented accommodation given access to the Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme, which provides grant funding of up to 75% towards the cost of installing EV chargepoints at domestic properties across the UK.
The change has been made to encourage people to make the switch in areas where charging provision is currently more limited and potentially more challenging to secure.
It comes alongside the launch of new app called EV8 Switch, which is backed by £2.7 million of UK Space Agency Funding and shows drivers how close their nearest chargepoints are and which journeys can be completed without the need to top-up en-route.
It also calculates how much money UK drivers could save by switching to an EV compared to their current petrol or diesel vehicle, along with details on the carbon dioxide savings and air quality improvements they could achieve.
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Transport for London (TfL) has opened a rapid charging hub for electric vehicles (EVs) in Woolwich.
The Glass Yard hub offers eight charging points for EVs, capable of charging vehicles in 20-30 minutes, meaning it is more likely space will be available at the site.
It is the second of five rapid charging facilities being developed by the group across London, following a site at Stratford International. The next – at Baynard House in the City of London – is currently under construction, with more to follow in north and west London.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said he was “delighted” the new site had opened.
Milton Keynes ‘Mushrooms’ Charging Hub (Image: T. Larkum)
“There are now over 7,000 charge points available to support electric vehicle use in the city and it’s great to see London leading the way in the green vehicle revolution,” he continued.
“Petrol and diesel vehicles are major contributors to air pollution in London so it is essential that we make it as easy as possible for people to swap their cars, vans and motorcycles to greener, electric versions. In October, I am expanding the Ultra Low Emission Zone up to the North and South Circular roads, which will bring huge benefits to many more Londoners by helping to improve our filthy air.”
London has around a third of the UK’s charging points, with more than 7,000 charging points within the M25. This increased by more than 2,000 over the last year, as well as TfL hitting its target of delivering 300 rapid charging points across the capital.
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The North West of England’s first dedicated ultra-rapid electric vehicle (EV) power site has now opened in Manchester – also the first rapid-only site in Manchester – at MFG’s Stretford branch on the Chester Road.
The site is strategically placed on the A56 and has eight dedicated ultra-rapid 150kW EV charging bays, which can give 100 miles of range in 10 minutes of charging.
Velautham Ravichandran, contract manager for MFG Stretford said: “It is extremely exciting to be able to offer a dedicated ultra-rapid EV charging option to both our local community and those travelling through. We are now well positioned to serve UK motorists well into the future in this part of Manchester.”
In England, over 60% of dwellings in cities and urban areas do not have garages or other off-road parking provisions, and so must rely on electricity from publicly accessible networks.
MFG’s investment, will increase the infrastructure available to drivers, helping to alleviate range anxiety and increase driver’s confidence in electricity as a fuel source, thereby improving EV adoption.
William Bannister, MFG CEO added: “We are investing heavily in ultra-rapid EV charging hubs alongside our existing fuel and convenience store network throughout the UK, including recent openings in Bristol and Birmingham and planned openings in Scotland and Wales this year. This is on top of a significant investment already by MFG in London which is leading the way in promoting cleaner motoring.”
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A project that will aim to break down the barriers that people face in charging electric vehicles at home has been given the green light after grant funding was awarded to Oxfordshire County Council and ODS.
The project will test a new solution to help people who don’t have access to a driveway to charge an electric car using their own home power supply. Funding has been awarded by Innovate UK and the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles. Volunteers from Oxford City and Cherwell are being sought to take part in the trial.
“The new administration at the County Council is determined to tackle climate change and make the county an acknowledged centre of innovation in the process. Dealing with practical day to day obstacles that prevent people from being able to confidently purchase electric vehicles is one area where we would like to see progress.
“This project will support the delivery of our recently adopted Oxfordshire Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Strategy, and the vision of the zero carbon transport system by 2050. We are on the lookout for residents to come forward as volunteers in Oxford City and Cherwell to take part in this trial with us.
“Oxfordshire is ahead of the UK curve in its transition from petrol and diesel vehicles to cleaner, greener electric vehicles, with over 6000 electric and ‘ultra-low emissions vehicles’, currently on our roads. We know that electric vehicle uptake is going to increase in the next five years in Oxfordshire, but a lack of suitable charging can be a barrier, especially for the estimated 30-40 per cent of Oxfordshire residents who have no access to off-street parking and can’t install a home charger. This trial will have those people especially in mind. I look forward to seeing them begin.”
Ubitricity Electric Avenue project lamppost charging (Image: Siemens)
Councillor Pete Sudbury, Oxfordshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Climate Change Delivery and Environment.
The project is the continuation of a successful 2020 scheme that ran in partnership with ODS, the Local Authority Trading Company, owned by Oxford City Council. ODS has a mission of ‘doing good business that’s good for everyone’, by finding innovative ways to deliver profitable and sustainable growth that brings genuine benefits to people, communities and the planet.
The University of Oxford predicts that sales of electric vehicles is likely to reach approximately 90 per cent of new vehicle sales by 2025 and 100 per cent before 2030. This means by 2025, there could be up to 40,000 electric vehicles on Oxfordshire’s roads and 100,000 by 2035.
The new project will test on-street electric vehicle charging using a specially designed ‘gully’ or channel, installed into the pavement. The gully allows residents to safely connect their electric vehicle to their home electricity supply when parked outside their home. The channel is seamlessly integrated into the pavement and has been designed so that cables will not cause a trip or slip hazard. Compared to installing electric charger bollards on the street, the arrangement causes less street clutter, especially where pavements are narrow, and it is much cheaper to install.
Connecting to a household’s own electricity supply means charging is cheaper and more convenient than using an on-street chargepoint, and also means that residents with solar panels can charge their EVs directly from their own renewable energy supply. The design builds on the learnings of the Go Ultra Low Oxford – a project led by Oxford City Council in partnership with Oxfordshire County Council, and funded by the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV).
The trial, which was described as being of ‘global significance’, trialled five different charging technologies for 18 residents across Oxford. Phase 1 of the trial found that there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution for on-street charging, but that the combination of a home charger and simple cable gully solution was the cheapest and most highly utilised solution.
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Region has fastest-growing network with number of electric vehicles in Coventry alone tripling in three years
The West Midlands has overtaken London as the region with the fastest-growing network of electric car chargers, thanks to a push by Coventry to rapidly move away from petrol and diesel cars.
The number of electric car chargers in the West Midlands rose by a fifth between April and July, according to data from Zap-Map and the Department for Transport. That compared with growth of 12.6% in the east of England.
London still attracted the most new charge points in absolute terms, with 309 additions, but the West Midlands, which has a much smaller population, was close behind, with 272.
The Climate Change Committee in June described improving the UK’s charging network as a priority for the government before the 2035 ban on new petrol and diesel engines. It said the government should aim for about 150,000 public charge points operating by 2025, “widely available across all regions of the UK”. However, London – with 13% of the population – still accounts for 31% of public chargers as charging companies cater for its wealthier citizens.
Ubitricity Electric Avenue project lamppost charging (Image: Siemens)
The UK had 24,400 public chargers in July, up from 15,000 in October 2019 when the DfT first started publishing comparable data. The chargers already outnumber the country’s 8,400 filling stations. However, the 7% quarterly growth rate between April and July would barely get the UK even a third of the way towards the CCC’s 2025 target.
Coventry has mostly used government funding to install chargers, with a quarter of the investment coming from private charge-point operators, who expect to make back their money in about seven years. It is part of a programme to embrace electric vehicles that also includes hosting the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre and securing preemptive planning permission for a “gigafactory” to build electric car batteries.
Shamala Evans-Gadgil, the programme manager in Coventry city council’s transport and innovation department, said she hoped their model for improving charger networks could show the way for the rest of the country. “We know that the ban is coming. We know that the infrastructure is necessary. It can’t just be Coventry. It needs to be across the board.”
The number of electric cars registered in the city has almost tripled to more than 1,000 in the past three years as the charging infrastructure has been rolled out. During 2021, the usage of chargers has also increased rapidly, Evans-Gadgil said.
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A design consultancy and the Royal College of Art have been commissioned to work on a new look for Britain’s charging points
Electric car charging points will be redesigned this year to make them “iconic and recognisable” like red phone boxes or London’s black taxis, the Government has announced.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has commissioned the design firm which made the Evian bottle, and the Royal College of Art, to come up with a new design which will be unveiled at the COP26 climate conference in the autumn and eventually used for up to two million charging points.
Most car charging points are likely to be installed by private firms or local councils, meaning the central Government cannot directly control their design. But the Department for Transport believes that by setting the new design as the default and providing a blueprint for free online, it will encourage its adoption more widely.
SWARCO eVolt is supplying 45 charging units, including 11 of its Rapid Chargers capable of charging two vehicles simultaneously in 30 minutes, across 28 sites in East Lothian (Image: eVolt)
A large number of people who own electric cars are believed to charge them at home, but a public network is seen as essential to ensure that drivers can abandon petrol-powered vehicles entirely, including for long journeys. There are now 25,000 public charging points across the UK, meaning that no road is more than 25 mile from one.
However, the country remains a long way off from the targets which experts say will be needed to enable the wide-scale adoption of electric cars. The Government’s own climate advisers estimated that at least 150,000 charging points would be necessary, centre-right think-tank Policy Exchange put the figure at 400,000 and the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders suggested as many as 2.3 million charging points were required.
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New data from Zap-Map has found that there are now 25,122 electric vehicle (EV) chargepoints across the UK.
This is across 15,875 locations, with 508 chargers added within the last month.
Between the end of 2016 and 2020 there was an increase of 220% in the number of public chargers, Zap-Map found.
The biggest market share of UK chargepoints by one network alone is ubitricity with 14.7%, followed by Pod Point (12.5%), BP Pulse (11%) and ChargePlace Scotland (7.6%).
IONITY rapid charge points at Leeds Skelton Lake Services (Image: IONITY)
However, this changes when looking specifically at rapid chargers, with Tesla Supercharge being the singe network with the largest share (15.9%). BP Pulse is a close second with 15.5%, followed by InstaVolt (12.7%) and ChargePlace Scotland (9.4%).
There are 4,675 rapid chargers in the UK, according to Zap-Map’s figures, with this split across 3,020 locations.
Meanwhile, London has the most chargers overall with 30.3%. The South East is next at 13.1%, followed by Scotland (10.5%) and the South West (7.2%).
Earlier today, Zap-Map announced it has partnered carbon data science firm Advanced Infrastructure for the development of a low carbon route tracker. This is to provide carbon intensity for individual chargepoints based on real-time grid data.
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