- One London borough is installing 500 curb-side EV chargers
- The solution is a godsend for owners that can’t still a domestic wall-box
- An increase of slower, cheaper charging makes EV ownership more appealing
The London Borough of Harrow announced this week that the region is targeting 500 curb-side EV chargers by October 2028. Of the 225 that are already online, the borough plans to more than double that number over the next two years.
The announcement will undoubtedly be music to the ears of inner-city EV owners, the majority of whom find it difficult to install domestic wall-box charging solutions thanks to many restrictions that include a lack of driveway, complicated shared car parks or a lack of off-street parking whatsoever.
While some councils have trialled solutions, including EV charger gulleys – which create a safe space to trail cumbersome EV chargers from a house, across a sidewalk and to a vehicle – this doesn’t work for a massive swathe of urban inhabitants.
According to research by Vauxhall, which contacted all 414 local authorities in the UK about their future plans for local charging solutions in 2023, it found that 40% of households in Britain don’t have driveways – rising to a massive 60% in urban areas.
This means a huge percentage of potential EV owners are missing out on low-cost vehicle charging that makes the technology so appealing.
Anyone that has to resort to the public fast-charging network (if it exists nearby) will often find that a modern electric vehicle is actually more expensive to run than an internal combustion engine counterpart, seeing as some fast-charging outlets are charging in excess of £1 /$1 / AU$3 per kW.
Brimming the large battery of a Porsche Taycan or a Kia EV9, for example, can cost upwards of £100 /$140 / AU$200 to cover a measly 300-350 miles. That’s thirsty V8 territory.
“Without targeted investment and innovative solutions such as community charging hubs, curb-side charging and affordable fast charging across the country, residents in rural and less affluent urban areas may find it challenging to transition to electric vehicles,” explains Professor Christian Brand, Emeritus Professor of Transport, Energy and Climate Change at Oxford university.
Convenient and cheap overnight charging
As someone who has owned an electric vehicle for several years, as well as ‘borrowed’ many of the latest models for journalistic purposes, I can attest to the difficulties faced when it is not possible to simply plug in at home.
Currently, my humble house doesn’t benefit from a driveway, nor is the on-street parking close enough to the house to trail a cable. We have a shared car park, but the committee that looks after it isn’t interested in installing EV chargers.
The only sensible solution is a curb-side charger like the ones Char.gy has been providing to the UK’s local government for years. In 2025, it hit a milestone by delivering its one millionth charging session.
However, the 4,900 charge points installed in the UK (admittedly, most are in London) are clever in so much that they are tethered to lampposts and other existing infrastructure, or come in the form of unobtrusive posts on the sidewalk.
Users provide their own charging cable, but can then take advantage of cheaper nighttime charging rates, with the midnight to 7am shift costing around 39p per kW (or around 79¢ / AU$1.13 per KW).
While that’s not as cheap as some domestic tariffs, which can be as low as 7p per kW (about 9¢ / AU13¢ per KW), it represents a huge saving over the public fast-charging network.
What’s the hold up?
Curb-side EV charging feels like the most sensible solution to me. The low-powered 7kWh or 22kWh outlets means the solutions are more subtle and can easily blend in with existing infrastructure, while the convenience and cost-savings of charging while the vehicle is parked overnight makes perfect sense.
Each morning, EV owners will arrive at their vehicles with a full battery, knowing they can return and plug in later that day. It reduces range anxiety no end.
But while some UK boroughs are ploughing ahead with the technology, Vauxhall’s Electric Streets of Britain research found that 69% of councils and local authorities hadn’t installed any on-street charging points in 2024.
What’s more, 71.6% of councils confirmed that they had no plans to install residential on-street chargers at the time. However, a more recent update suggests the number of councils with a dedicated policy officer for EV charging has at least risen from 31% in 2023 to 51% in 2025, while 44% of councils say they had installed at least one on-street charger by August this year compared to 31% in 2023.
“The slowdown in kerbside charging is fundamentally about infrastructure. Most urban distribution networks were never designed for simultaneous overnight EV demand at scale,” explains Philip Clarke, Founder and CEO at TUAL, a business that overcomes grid and vehicle constraints with scalable, modular solutions that allow fleets to take control of charging operations.
“You can install chargers on lampposts, but if the local transformer is already near capacity, power must be limited or the network reinforced. Reinforcement takes time and capital, which is where projects stall,” he noted.
“The constraint lies in grid headroom; the UK grid is resilient, but it was not designed to deliver high capacity at the very edge of the network. Kerbside charging is one visible example of that limitation,” he adds.
Slowly but surely
Local solutions, such as easily accessible curb-side charging, appear to be one of the simplest ways to speed up EV adoption in those areas that lack an affordable and robust public charging network.
Companies like Trojan Energy in the UK are bringing fresh ideas to the table, with a ‘flat and flush’ charging outlet that is embedded within the sidewalk. The community brings its own, admittedly bulky, charging adaptor that slots neatly into the outlet.
Once plugged in, users can enjoy up to 22kWh charging speeds, with billing and tariffs all handled automatically through the adaptor. It’s a slightly bulky solution, but it allows the Trojan community to charge at domestic rates at 1,200 public charge points.
What about the US?
It is a similar story in North America, where a third of US households are in multi-unit buildings with no simple way to install domestic chargers.
Beam Global hit the headlines with its solution that turns street lights into charging stations, complete with a 1kW solar panel and a 1kW wind turbine for truly green energy.
However, these are designed primarily for shopping and commercial districts, rather than residential areas, seeing as the charging solution is large and unsightly.
Gravity also began rolling out its “Charging Trees” in New York City in 2024, which see high-powered charging solutions mounted overhead on articulated arms. The Distributed Access Energy Points (DEAPs) negate the need to block sidewalks with bulky charging points.
Companies such as Voltpost and EVgo have also made some progress with both curb-side EV chargers and lamppost-based systems, but this hasn’t been at the rate seen in the UK and other European countries.
More recently, Ubitricity teamed up with oil giant Shell to rebrand its charging outlets Shell Recharge in the UK. These discreet charging outlets are tethered to lamppost, bollards and other pieces of unassuming road furniture.
Currently, there are 14,400 public on-street charging stations within the network but, seeing as it has the backing of a multinational like Shell, those numbers are only going to increase at pace.
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!
And of course, you can also follow TechRadar on YouTube and TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/PahBV2yGANdogZf9vBG6G7-1920-80.jpg
Source link
