Kerbside pole-mounted chargers are now a thing

[Sir Surfalot]

Update on the Intellihub pole-mounted AC charging trial for (Sydney) Northern Beaches LGA, email I just received from council:

Dear Ted
Thank you for your interest in the Intellihub Electric Vehicle Streetside Charging Project.

EV charging stations have been installed and are ready to use at the following sites:

• Blackbutts Road (opposite Malbara Crescent), Frenchs Forest
• 9 Anzac Avenue, Collaroy
• 25-27 Ashburner Street, Manly
• 4 West Promenade, Manly.

The charging station for Dearin Reserve, Newport has been installed and will soon be ready for use.

Ausgrid has advised that the stations approved for sites at Governor Phillip Park, Palm Beach and Coronation Street, Mona Vale can no longer proceed due to load limit issues.

We have selected two alternative sites that were considered under the original proposal, and will be reporting these to the Local Traffic Committee in February 2024 seeking approval:

• 19 Yulong Avenue, Terrey Hills
• 118 Allambie Road, Allambie Heights.

I have to say that Terrey Hills and Allambie Heights aren’t really an alternative to Palm Beach and Mona Vale (in many ways ) but I guess it is what it is.

Hopefully at least the Jolt 25kW DC charger will still be proceeding opposite Barrenjoey House (Palm Beach).

 

[doggy1]

Having previously responded to all their surveys, I suggested to them that now there will be no Type 2 charging North of Newport (when that gets commissioned) or Dee Why for now. Also no DC charging Nth of Mona Vale (for now) and that they should put one Intellihub in at the Avalon shops. This was one of their possible locations and they even erected a sign on the spot. It is perfectly placed for shops, the library and the local park.

Crazy that someone did not check power availability before they went to public review/input. Hopefully other people will jump up and down a little....

 

[B3AU]

EVX is expanding into Endeavour Energy territory; ABC Illawarra has reported one of the 5 pilot sites have gone live been installed outside their Wollongong location.

Page on the Wollongong Council for the 5 trial sites - Kerbside Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Points Pilot

View attachment 1000580
None of the 5 sites are appearing on the EVX app or EVX website yet.

Have added it to PlugShare in the meantime (pending further details or photos) 12-20 Victoria St Parking | Wollongong, NSW | EV Station

These 5 sites are now live in the EVX app, though some are still 'unavailable'.

 

[B3AU]

EVX are next to introduce idle fees - An Update to Our Services - EVX

We are updating our fee structure at certain sites within our network. While our base rates remain unchanged, we will be implementing idle fees to enhance the overall charging experience. This adjustment aims to:

• Promote fair usage of our public kerbside charging locations
• Improve availability during peak periods
• Encourage adherence to appropriate charging etiquette as outlined in our terms of use

(I think EVX are the first to introduce idle fees for AC charging? Tesla / Jolt / Chargefox all charge idle fees for DC charging, but not AC)

Here's an example site 3-19 Yurong St Parking | Darlinghurst, NSW | EV Station

 

[gazpachopolice]

This is a good move. I park nearby regularly, and with street parking charged at $8/hour, plugging in your car to top up from 99% to 100% and then leaving it there for the day (no time limits at all!) for the grand price of $0.50 was a steal. Yes, it's technically illegal, but how is council supposed to be able to see if it's actually charging or not?

Assuming you're paying $0.30/kWh at home (vs $0.50 with EVX) and you're parking a Model 3 that tops out at 11 kW for AC, you're still effectively only paying around $2/hr to park. With the idle fees, it's now $12/hr to leave the car there after it hits 100%, which will hopefully encourage better turnover.

 

[B3AU]

This is a good move. I park nearby regularly, and with street parking charged at $8/hour, plugging in your car to top up from 99% to 100% and then leaving it there for the day (no time limits at all!) for the grand price of $0.50 was a steal. Yes, it's technically illegal, but how is council supposed to be able to see if it's actually charging or not?

Not illegal. (and there's a status light on the EVX units when they're available or in use, or they could use the app)

Car only has to be "plugged in to an external source of electricity" to be parked legally. Nothing about actively charging.

https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/whole/html/inforce/current/sl-2014-0758#sec.203B

203C Stopping in a parking area for the charging of electric-powered vehicles
(1) A driver must not stop in a parking area for the charging of electric-powered vehicles unless—
(a) the driver’s vehicle is an electric-powered vehicle, and
(b) the electric-powered vehicle is plugged in to an external source of electricity.

With the idle fees, it's now $12/hr to leave the car there after it hits 100%, which will hopefully encourage better turnover.

Depending on how much of a jerk you want to be, you could always throttle your charging rate, if you wanted to technically do the right thing.

Or, just plug your car in and never start a session - still technically legally parked as per the road rule.
And since you never stated the charging session, there's no way for them to charge you.

(obviously nobody should be doing this.....)

 

[Max Spaghetti]

Depending on how much of a jerk you want to be, you could always throttle your charging rate, if you wanted to technically do the right thing.

Or, just plug your car in and never start a session - still technically legally parked as per the road rule.
And since you never stated the charging session, there's no way for them to charge you.

(obviously nobody should be doing this.....)

Yes, that is indeed a loophole with AC charging.

With DC charging, you can't control it (other than to not start a session at all - although Teslas at Superchargers can't get around this).

However, with AC charging you could set a charge rate that would achieve your desired charge level at the time you plan to return to the vehicle.

Not sure how they can police that. I suppose if it became a "thing" they would just add a time-based charge to the kWh-based charge - i.e. charging will cost say $0.4/kWh PLUS $4/hr even while charging. It still wouldn't get around the "don't start a charge at all" loophole - I guess they could just change the rule so that a session must be initiated to park legally, and the charger will have some kind of status light to indicate this to the parking officer writing you a ticket.

Of course, EV drivers are not jerks, so none of that will be necessary.

 

[Vostok]

The yanks getting in a lather over this “first of a kind” pole charger…

This lamppost EV charger just went commercial in the US

EV charging company Voltpost's "first-of-a-kind" lamppost EV charger is now commercially available in major US metro areas.

electrek.co

Except it isn’t. Certainly not in the world (a lot of ‘Mericans don’t seem to appreciate that USA != World) and not even USA since Flo has been making pole chargers for a while and has been deploying them in Canada and USA.

The BTL comments are interesting, highlighting how backward the USA is in not having “BYO Cable” as a thing (Type 1 does not support it) hence concern over vandalism to the plugs and cables. And that the power will be insufficient on the basis that lampposts are probably only wired up to support a few kW - whereas here power poles are the electricity distribution so there is no shortage of power overhead.

The idea that we have pole chargers here that can charge 2 x cars simultaneously up to 22kW each and that they haven’t been vandalised because “BYO cable” would blow their minds.

I’d dive in and post comments to that effect, but I ain’t signing up to Fred’s site since he abandoned disqus.

 

[moa999]

There's another US company rolling out similar BYO cables designs to what we have.
Funnily they are using the Type2 connector as it's standardised for BYO, and will just supply Type-Type1 or Type2-NACS cables.