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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday June 20 2017, @11:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the hope-the-cable-has-locks dept.

The global fleet of electric vehicles grew 60% last year, and while predictions vary, some people claim that we'll all be driving (or riding in) electric vehicles within just a few decades.

But in many cities, one major impediment could slow down adoption: Where the heck do you charge your car if you don't have a driveway or garage?

Hounslow Council in London has implemented an interesting—and aesthetically pleasing—solution to this problem. It has converted its streetlights to energy efficient LEDs and, in doing so, is integrating electric vehicle charging points in the base of those streetlamps. The charge points themselves come from German company Ubitricity, and they integrate with a custom charging cable—which is ordered by the EV owner/driver—that has an electricity meter built in.

So if you happen to live in Hounslow, you simply request a charging point from your council, they install three near your house (they are trying to avoid painting dedicated electric vehicle bays). You then order an Ubitricity cable, you plug in, and you start charging. Ubitricity then sends you a monthly bill, charged at a competitive rate of £0.13 per kWh. And that's it.

Who's liable when pedestrians trip on the charging cables?

[Ed note - As a side note, apparently the LED streetlamp replacement has some issues.] - Fnord666


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 21 2017, @03:57AM (8 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 21 2017, @03:57AM (#528874)

    Which sounds great until you wind up being mugged or raped in the shadows because the lights weren't bright enough to give you adequate view of what's going on around you. It sucks that we're losing the night sky, but you make it sound like this isn't a reasonable measure to keep people safe.

    Things like this do make a meaningful difference in crime rates.

    The best thing would be to figure find a single wavelength or the smallest possible portion of the visible spectrum for use with the lights and hopefully make it easier to filter out just that portion of the spectrum.

  • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by bob_super on Wednesday June 21 2017, @06:10AM (1 child)

    by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday June 21 2017, @06:10AM (#528913)

    >until you wind up being mugged or raped in the shadows

    Guns reduce crime rates, I've been told.
    Obvious solution: Arm everyone with a gun, then you can turn off all the lights.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 21 2017, @12:39PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 21 2017, @12:39PM (#528977)

      Great, I'll go order my night vision goggles right now.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by TheRaven on Wednesday June 21 2017, @10:42AM (4 children)

    by TheRaven (270) on Wednesday June 21 2017, @10:42AM (#528947) Journal
    Except that there's very little evidence to support the idea that increased night lighting increases safety, rather than simply the perception of safety. I used to walk home through an unlit park. With the starlight on clear nights, or the reflected glow from the clouds on overcast nights, I could see well enough to spot a person quite a way away. If I wanted to avoid people, it was easy to do so. Then they gave into calls for street lamps and put them along a load of the paths. These completely destroyed your night vision and so you could see in the 10m radius pool of light under each one, but someone standing just outside this pool was completely invisible to the people on the path and could easily wait for a single person coming on the path run in, mug them, and run out a few steps to become invisible again. The flashers - the people who led to the introduction of these lights in the first place - loved it because their victims now got a well-lit view of them and they could easily fade into the background afterwards, so complaints about them went up after lights were installed.
    --
    sudo mod me up
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 21 2017, @12:50PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 21 2017, @12:50PM (#528984)

      Yep, this is a known issue and one of the ways in that the older, less-bright, yellowish streetlights were better is that they didn't produce so more contrast that you couldn't see past the lit up area.

      • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday June 21 2017, @04:58PM

        by fyngyrz (6567) on Wednesday June 21 2017, @04:58PM (#529112) Journal

        That's another reason flashlights are better: instead of one pool of light where you can see, you can put light anywhere you actually need or want to see, any time you want to.

        Anyone who thinks streetlights make them "safer" needs to go stand under one and look around at all the places they now can't see. Because if there's one thing streetlights do very well, it's create deep pools of shadows.

    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday June 21 2017, @04:20PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday June 21 2017, @04:20PM (#529080)

      That's true when you live in suburbia, but anywhere with lit houses and intermittent car headlights will leave you unable to use your night vision.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 21 2017, @08:45PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 21 2017, @08:45PM (#529198)

      In my town, when there is sufficient cloud cover at night, it is lit up like day. The street lights reflect off the clouds and you can see everywhere.

      It was pretty disconcerting for me the first few times it happened.

  • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday June 21 2017, @04:53PM

    by fyngyrz (6567) on Wednesday June 21 2017, @04:53PM (#529107) Journal

    Which sounds great until you wind up being mugged or raped in the shadows because the lights weren't bright enough to give you adequate view of what's going on around you.

    Did you ever hear of that marvelous new invention, the "flashlight"? Not only does it give more than enough light to walk around with, you can point it into shadow areas to see what is there; even shadows where streetlights don't reach. For those times when you're walking around at night. I use one myself. Works fine.