London Street Lamps Retrofitted to Charge Electric Cars

Electric cars are coming, believe it or not. Automakers might be dragging their feet, and consumers might be slow to adopt, but make no mistake: electric is the future, and the sooner we adopt it, the better. Think about how much less pollution our cities will have. How much quieter roadways will be. How efficient our trucks and cars could get.

London is helping accelerate that effort with help from a project by Ubitricity, who is retrofitting lamp posts to be charging stations for electric cars. The lamps have been converted to LEDs, freeing up much of the electricity the lamps previously used. Now, versus having to find designated charging stations, drivers will be able to plug in their cars right on city streets, giving them more flexibility, greater range, and overall, driving more adoption of electric cars.

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Each cord has it’s own built-in electric meter, and the electricity is billed remotely to that user, so that the costs aren’t passed on to others. A very clever solution to urban car charging, something we hope grows in popularity. Via DesignBoom:

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