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* Electric vehicle sales outstrip kerbside charging rollout
* Many local authorities struggling with infrastructure need
* Even trailblazer Norway finding it hard to bridge gap
By Nick Carey and Tina Bellon
LONDON, Oct 13 (Reuters) - European and U.S. cities planning
to phase out combustion engines over the next 15 years first
need to plug a charging gap for millions of residents who park
their cars on the street.
For while electric vehicle (EVs) sales are soaring in Europe
and the United States, a lag in installing charging
infrastructure is causing a roadblock.
Often cash-strapped local authorities have other priorities
than a kerbside network of charging points which would allow
owners to ensure their EVs are always topped up.
And while that leaves a potential gap for the private
sector, it is one that few EV charging startups, who have been
early adopters in other locations, are focused on.
"It's really difficult to tackle on-street residential
charging, so there's really not many companies that have," Hugh
Mackenzie, chief operating officer at Trojan Energy, said.
Trojan has developed a charger, which is being tested on
residential streets in two London boroughs, where EV owners
insert a short pole into sockets sunk into the pavement and then
plug in their car.
Tim Win, an Uber driver who charges his Nissan Leaf every
day, is using the system in Brent, north London.
"After I've been driving all day I just want to come home
and plug in," said Win, 39, who previously used a nearby EV fast
charger to charge up in 20 minutes but sometimes had to wait in
line for nearly an hour.
A "cabbie" using one of London's new electric black taxis
told Reuters he often has to drive between charging points,
losing valuable custom as he does, only to find they are either
already in use or malfunctioning.
COST CURB
Like the roll out of fibre optic cable for ultra-fast
broadband, urban on-street charging using solutions which
include lamp post chargers or even wireless, will cost billions.
Solutions like Trojan's are expensive because they require
grid connections. And because there are not yet enough EV owners
to ensure a quick return, they are 75% subsidized by Britain's
government.
Trojan's chargers cost around 7,000 pounds ($9,520) to make
and install, but Mackenzie says that if that can be cut to 4,500
pounds it will work for private investors.
But it still requires local authority buy-in.
"The biggest factor in whether kerbside charging is
successful is whether you have an interested and engaged
municipality," said Travis Allan, vice president for public
affairs at Quebec City-based FLO, which has installed at least
7,000 kerbside chargers in Canadian and U.S. cities.
Yet even engaged local authorities like Brent, which is
trying lamp post chargers and other solutions, simply lack cash.
Tim Martin, Brent council's transportation planning manager,
says lamp post chargers cost around 2,000 pounds and rapid
chargers around 15,000 pounds, so subsidies are the only option.
"The prospect of being able to fund them ourselves out of
our own budgets is practically zero," Martin said.
Based on car registrations and parking permits, charging
startup char.gy estimates there are between 5 million and 10
million cars in London, of which around 76% park on the street.
Government figures show the total is around 40% for
Britain's 33 million cars, while around 40% of Americans do not
live in single-family homes with garages.
And while the rise of car sharing services may reduce the
need for on-street charging, it is unclear by how much.
Char.gy Chief Executive Richard Stobart estimates Britain
will need half a million on-street chargers by 2030, when around
half of the country's cars should be electric. Char.gy runs a
network of around 1,000 on-street lamp post chargers in Britain
that cost around 1,800 pounds to make and install.
While government subsidies exist, Stobart said, local
authorities often lack the resources.
"So they just dither and it takes forever," he added.
Ubitricity, a Royal Dutch Shell business, is the
British market leader, with just 4,000 chargers using lamp
posts, which if they are close enough to the kerb and use LED
lamps, have enough power to mostly charge an EV overnight.
Lex Hartman, ubitricity's CEO, estimates that in
densely-populated areas, around 60% of Europe's car owners will
need public charging.
"You will need chargers at home, at work, at the
supermarket, you will need fast charging, but mainly you need
charging everywhere," Hartman said.
"If the infrastructure isn't there then people will hesitate
to buy an electric car unless they are forced to," he added.
Europe has more than 90 million lamp posts, millions of
which can be used for charging, said Hartman, whose ubitricity
also runs a lamp post charger network in Berlin.
The European Commission knows urban chargers "will be
essential to convincing more and more consumers to go electric,"
and has formed an expert group to advise cities on how to deploy
them, a spokesperson said.
'PAINFUL EXPERIENCE'
Some cities face a huge challenge.
New York state has set a goal for all new passenger cars and
light-duty trucks to be zero-emission by 2035.
But New York City currently has just 1,580 charging plugs
for around one million cars that rely on street parking.
"Owning an EV in a large city like New York is a really
painful experience," said Paul Suhey, co-founder of electric
moped sharing startup Revel, which has launched the city's first
fast-charging hub.
An April study commissioned by New York estimated
electrifying its transportation would cost some $500 billion.
In Los Angeles, which has the most chargers of any U.S.
city, Blink Charging last year bought city-run EV car
sharing network BlueLA, which has 100 vehicles and 200 charging
stations.
Blink CEO Michael Farkas said local authorities want
charging infrastructure in as many places as possible to
encourage people to buy EVs, but companies cannot afford to
shoulder the investments until ownership rises.
"You can't just have a field of dreams, you'll go broke
unless the government wants to pay for it," Farkas said.
Even in Norway, where state support put it at the forefront
of the electric shift, rolling out on-street charging is tough.
Oslo subsidizes larger public chargers and rapid chargers,
investments that pay off within three to six years, Sture
Portvik, who heads up its charging infrastructure efforts, said.
But making charging accessible for the 30% of car owners who
lack designated parking in a city where bans on fossil-fuel cars
will start in the next few years is a major challenge.
"It's extremely important that everybody, regardless of
their economic background, gets to be a part of the green
shift," Portvik said. "And they will have to because in a few
years they will have to sell their diesel car."
($1 = 0.7354 pounds)
(Additional reporting by Kate Abnett in Brussels; Editing by
Alexander Smith)
