Voltpost, a new electric vehicle charging company, announced the commercial availability of its curbside EV charging solution, developed for major U.S. metro areas.
The company's idea is to retrofit lampposts into AC Level 2 EV charging points with minimum install cost and time, maintenance and footprint.
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How to recharge in cities?
The main question for cities is how urban EV drivers living in multi-unit housing (without dedicated parking spaces) can recharge their vehicles. There are various ideas, which are competing for a potentially large market.
Voltpost's curbside chargers are modular and upgradable, with two or four charging ports, an integrated retractable cable management system (up to 20 feet) and a set of safety features.
There is also a proprietary plug called ChargePlug (SAE J1772 standard). As we can see below in a photo of a pilot installation in New York City, the cable is at a 90˚ angle to the car socket to "ensure that the cable does not present a hazard to adjacent traffic and pedestrians."
A crucial element of Voltpost's charging solution is a mobile app so the drivers can locate the charging points, make reservations, track charging events, pay based on electricity consumed and more. On the other side of the business, the private stakeholders have the Charge Station Management System (CSMS) to remotely monitor chargers and set prices.
According to Voltpost, a new charging point can be installed in one to two hours for a fraction of the cost with no construction, trenching or extensive permitting processes. That's because it's an add-on to the existing infrastructure.
The company installed a pilot charging point as part of the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) Studio program. The job was done in one hour, while the charging point is operated with the highest uptime of any service in the pilot program, Voltpost adds.
Voltpost also says that is deploying EV charging projects in major U.S. metro areas, including New York, Chicago, Detroit and others, this spring. This will be a big test for the solution, which has a chance to help accommodate EVs in large cities.
The New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) Studio program considered over 80 startups, but only three were chosen to participate in real-world pilots. The other two are Connected Kerb (testing a modular, in-ground solution with user-supplied cords at Brooklyn Navy Yard) and char.gy (retrofitting streetlights in NYC with a user-supplied cord solution).
