The rise of retractable EV chargers? Urban Fox explains its huge plans for UK
The rise of retractable EV chargers? Urban Fox explains its huge plans for UK
The latest news from the world of EVs
Morning, I’m Tom Riley and after a few weeks away welcome back to The Fast Charge, a British EV newsletter.
Top story in today’s edition… I hear from Oli Freeling-Wilkinson, CEO of Urban Fox, about their plans for rolling out 35,000 retractable chargers across the UK over the next decade.
Elsewhere… a lot of battery news, green investors call for clarity from Sunak, and the DVLA makes big bucks from cannabis slang.
As ever, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do get in touch. Also, to flag, this Sunday I will be at Concours of Elegance in Hampton Court – do drop me a message if you’re going. My contact details are here or simply reply to this email.
Are retractable EV bollards about to shake up on-street charging?
Background: In the UK, it remains a fact that about a third of people do not have off-street parking at their homes. This means when they do switch to an EV, if they haven’t already, they will require an on-street charging solution. Though this challenge is a regular feature in the EV debate, and there are already some stellar solutions out there – such as repurposing lampposts or even installing sockets in pavements – we’ve barely scraped the surface of what’s possible. And in the case of Urban Fox, that line can be taken quite literally.
Overview: Urban Fox is an EV charging company that has spent a number of years designing a retractable charge point. I’ve included a video below, though it’s quite simple: when you need to charge, it pops up, and when you’re finished, it goes down. When the charger is down, it’s totally flush – meaning no trip hazards or uncluttered streetscape. And if you’re reading this thinking ‘That sounds pretty futuristic and niche’, you might be surprised to know the company is partnered with infrastructure giant Balfour Beatty – who are helping it take 10% of the entire market from 2040.
How will it do that? The company has large ambitions, and even with a team made up of experienced EV sector operators, it could be difficult – especially given the competitive market against the likes of ubitricity, SureCharge, Char.gy, Connected Kerb, and Trojan (amongst many others). To find out more, I spoke with Oli Freeling-Wilkinson, co-founder and CEO of Urban Fox.
Firstly, why a retractable EV charger? How did they conclude that was the best solution? “We spent probably a good year, I would say, before we actually started designing anything, just talking to literally anybody who could be impacted or affected, or were controlling the streets [e.g. local authorities] when it came to EV charging infrastructure,” says Oli who explains that ‘street clutter’ was one of the biggest barriers at that time to deploying infrastructure on leafy suburban streets.
Oli concludes: “Nobody wants an ugly-looking bollard outside their house, a permanent piece of infrastructure. And we spent years decluttering streets, getting rid of parking meters, only to say we need all these bollards in place now to charge your car. So, for me, it was like okay, well, how do we solve that problem? And essentially all roads led to a charge point that could actually hide when not in use.”
The charger looks extremely futuristic, and I assumed before our chat that it is perhaps style over practical usage. However, Oli says the reason their design has taken a long time to come to life is Urban Fox wanted to make a charge point that goes “above and beyond” the guidelines and regulations. This is to make sure that their design “can be used by everybody, regardless of age or mobility ability” – which is now a key consideration for all charge point operators.
However, given all the moving parts, and the fact the charger has to hide away… surely installing one of these Urban Fox chargers is going to cost a lot more, and be more laborious than say putting in a lamppost? “We found in our pilots that, typically, if we took ten streets, we'd be able to install on eight of them…when it comes to deployment, it actually compares really favourably with lamppost charging, believe it or not, where that's probably 30% hit rate.”
Oli adds that on cost: “The civil costs are very similar [to lamppost chargers] because although you're only going down, this is compared to a typical bollard that you might install, the costs aren't hugely different. To dig the trench that little bit deeper is not a material difference in cost.” Oli also makes the point that their chargers are all going to be paid for by them, not public money.
So, as well as having a new, different product to what’s on the market already, what is Urban Fox’s edge? Given they are going to be entering a market already swamped with large players. From speaking to the team at Urban Fox, this is undoubtedly where a partnership with Balfour Beatty pays dividends – as they already have deep relationships with local authorities. But also because of the state of grant funding in the UK.
Oli believes there's nothing left to come after the LEVI funding. “The private sector is now ready to take the reins. And so it's really important for local authorities that whoever they partner with now, they have faith that they can partner with them, not just with this government spending splurge that's going on, but for the long term to develop a network to serve residents to full electric,” he says.
Coming soon? There’s certainly interest in Urban Fox’s approach, and later this year they will officially launch in Dundee. “We're working with them right now to just finalise the sites and actually start the civil works, which will be in August actually, when things start moving forwards,” says Oli.
Final thoughts… Like speaking to so many other charge point operators in the UK, two things become clear while speaking to Oli. Firstly, planning takes many months, though deployment can take as little as a few days. And, secondly, the 2030 mandate needs to remain “because all the private investment that is now ready to be pumped into the industry to considerably increase the rollout of electric vehicles charging infrastructure.”
Thanks to Oli Freeling-Wilkinson, co-founder and CEO of Urban Fox, for chatting with me. You can find out more about Urban Fox on their website here.
Latest EV news…
🌳 This week has seen the expansion of the ULEZ to the Greater London area. A positive step towards cleaner air, but it remains controversial – having started the uncertainty around the 2030 mandate in recent months. Read more.
⚡ Yesterday, to mark the tenth anniversary of Tesla’s Supercharger network, the company made all its chargers free to use for European drivers. This is part of Tesla’s ‘Summer Celebrations’ which has resulted in various marketing activities by the company, such as launching their new ‘V4 Superchargers’ last week. It’s telling that after many years of shunning PR, Tesla is now actively running a communications team.
📜 Financial institutions that manage more than £1.5 trillion in assets have sent a letter to the Prime Minister saying a lack of clarity on green policies is causing uncertainty for investors. Read more.
🤝 In better news for Sunak, it seems that the EU may be on the cusp of agreeing to a deal to suspend the incoming trade tariffs on where EVs are made - which has been worrying carmakers. Though, as the i's political editor notes, even if successful voters won’t really notice or care. Read more.
♿ The Association for Renewable Energy and Clean Technology has called on the government to mandate accessibility requirements for chargers, ensuring that wheelchair users have equal access. Read more.
🔋 Last week carmaker JLR revealed that it would be using old EV batteries to store energy for the national grid, putting them in containers as part of a renewable energy park. Learn more.
🤑 Redwood Materials, the battery recycling company founded by ex-Tesla co-founder JB Straubel, announced yesterday that it’s raised $1 billion to expand. As a reminder, Redwood has a UK base near Leeds. Read more.
📰 Extremely good feature in the FT looking across the battery industry over the world and the companies involved, including lots of snazzy charts. Link here [pay wall]
📷 Talking of batteries, Kodak, the camera company, is apparently starting to move into EV battery development – using its knowledge of chemicals and supply chains. I had no idea and just saw last week here!
🗳️ Final battery update, The Department for Business and Trade is working on a new battery strategy that will be published in the coming months. A consultation was published last week on GOV.UK. See all the details and respond by 28 September.
🔌 Nine out of 12 regions of the UK installed more than 100 rapid chargers during the past year, according to new ZapMap data. Read more.
📈 Gloucestershire Council has started its journey to installing 1,000 chargers over the next three years. Read more.
🎉 This morning rapid charging company Gridserve has celebrated starting work on 50 hubs across the UK this year. Great gusto. See here.
🚫 Meanwhile, in Yorkshire, the council there has said its confident of chargers rollout despite seemingly making little progress. Apparently, in York on-street chargers are “illegal” (according to York Press). Surely that’s codswallop? If not, God help my home state. See more.
👍 The production editor of the Guardian last week published a column about her positive experience doing a road trip in an EV. What makes the column that much nicer is the car, allegedly, only has 100 miles of range – I wonder what she went in? In any case, great to see such advocacy. Read it here.
📅 One for your calendars… Next Saturday on 9 September it’s World EV Day. Expect to see lots of companies posting about it. See the website here.
🌿 Finally, my favourite discovery of the last couple of weeks was buried within the annual accounts for DVLA – and it’s not EV related. Essentially, every year the DVLA sells personalised number plates, and last year the most expensive plate sold, which the agency boasts went for a whopping £96,670, was… ‘42O’…. Sweet Maryjane, that’s dope!
By Tom Riley | Check my Linktree for LinkedIn, Twitter and TikTok