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0 pointsrini175y ago0 comments

After street lighting was upgraded to more energy-effective LEDs there's surplus capacity. Making every pole available for slow overnight charging does not mean to "completely revamp entire neighborhoods". The possibility to sell the electricity might even become attractive for municipality or utility.

Also, parking is going to be overhauled anyway, after decades of cars occupying every nook and cranny, there's a strong push to free the streets.

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davidhbolton5y ago

I lived in London until 2015 and took a recent look on Street View where I lived (Search for E10 6QB if you want to see) . It was a typical London street where everyone parks nose to nose. There's about 20 cars for every lamp post.

No way could you charge every car that way. With the typical 50-70% street occupancy. You'd be lucky to find a spare lamp post.

magicalhippo5y ago

> No way could you charge every car that way.

But surely the majority of those cars have a short commute. We have a BMW i3 which has a relatively small 33kWh battery, and we usually charge it less than twice per week.

A car with a longer range wouldn't need to be charged that often.

Daho0n5y ago

>But surely the majority of those cars have a short commute.

That is irrelevant. If you cannot always get a parking spot where you can charge then from time to time you would end up not being able to change when you absolutely need to. It's like parking at work and there's no charging available and you have to drive around for 20 minutes and turn up late for work. No, there's a need for either always available charging in every single area or a system that is a direct replacement for gas stations (IE. charge in a couple of minutes every week or so).

I have lived in an area like it (luckily I moved) and the amount of time I have driven around in circles just to get a parking spot is more than I'd like to know. If only some of them had charging people with cars would be forced to either move away or drive around in circles for hours on end every day.

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chrisseaton5y ago

> There's about 20 cars for every lamp post.

Maybe the real problem is we have too many cars in the first place? Maybe we should limits cars to one per couple or something like that?

pjc505y ago

That is one car per couple, or less, in central London! Well, apart from the oligarchs.

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