Home EV charging is fine if you have your own garage. Sadly, it’s a real pain to organize for those stuck parking on the street, and this can make owning an EV highly impractical. Salvation may be at hand, however, courtesy of Rheinmetall.
The name probably sounds familiar, and for good reason. Rheinmetall is an industrial giant from Germany, famous for its role in building the Leopard 2 tank among many other projects. The company stands as one of Europe’s largest arms manufacturers, but it’s recently been extending itself into the electric vehicle space, too.
The result of that work is the aptly-named Curb Charger. It’s literally an EV charger that sits in place of a section of concrete curb on the side of the road. Why didn’t we think of that?
Thus far, street-based charging solutions have often focused on leveraging things like bollards or existing streetlamps or utility poles. Rheinmetall’s solution is altogether cleaner and lower profile, essentially matching the profile of the street’s existing concrete curb.
The charger is capable of delivering up to 22 kW of power to an electric vehicle. It’s more intended for extended charging sessions in areas where people might park their cars for a long period of time.
While the device is intended to become part of the street infrastructure itself, it’s still been designed with an eye to maintainability. A quick-release system enables the hardware to be swapped out by technicians in the event a charger fails in the field.
The device weighs 176 pounds with its weather resistant stainless steel and aluminum housing. In a nice touch for colder climates, it’s capable of heating itself to ensure the charger isn’t made inaccessible by snow or ice. Being IP68 rated, it can withstand water to a depth of 3.2 feet for 30 minutes, so outside of severe flooding, it should have no problem holding up to the weather.
Indeed, Rheinmetall has demonstrated its safety by pouring a bucket of water over the device while it’s in the middle of charging a vehicle. Built-in drains prevent moisture from building up inside, while an internal water sensor will halt the flow of power in the event the device becomes compromised.
The Curb Charger packs in a 4G modem and ethernet port in order to handle billing and monitoring. Users can interface with the device using a smartphone app, QR codes, or by scanning an RFID tag. Users need to supply their own charging cables, as a built-in cable would compromise the low-profile installation that is the unique selling point of the device.
We see a lot of interesting products pop up in press releases that promise to solve various automotive problems. However, Rheinmetall’s charger isn’t just an idea. It’s already been deployed in the City of Cologne for well over a year. Four chargers racked up more than 2,800 successful charging cycles. Rheinmetall states that the chargers averaged over two charges per day per charging point. They proved reliable, too, with availability over 99%.
Chargers like this could really open up the EV market to the street-parking masses. There are still challenges, mostly around delivering electrical infrastructure to places where it formerly wasn’t needed. Regardless, Rheinmetall’s subtle curbside charger could prove a game-changer for cities looking to offer a realistic street-charging solution that doesn’t clutter the sidewalk.
Top graphic images: Rheinmetall
Homeowners are already advised to hardwire their home chargers due to the potential for increased resistance as contact points corrode in certain environments; these would be multiple times worse. Mostly out-of-sight charging cords (to passing traffic) will be easier to steal. And one needs to look no further than how much abuse and neglect other public infrastructure receives to have little confidence in this – see bus shelters, public restrooms, Lime scooters, potholes, and litter.
I like the street light chargers better. About an hour to install higher up on a pole just makes more sense.
Everything else aside, that design for a charger won’t be popular with old people or anyone else with a bad back.
We had an 8ft snow bank at our curb this winter.
Pretty sure they’re not thinking of targeting Canada with this.
Aside from vandals, and trash, and dog pee/poop. They would be buried under 4-5′ mountains of snow in a New England or rocky Mountain town in the winter which no amount of heating will uncover them.
Plus road salt. And at some point they would be under a layer of salty slush when it rains after a heavy snowfall.
That pee hole in the snow bank, do you think that it’s a charger down there?
These things are an element of the commons in search of tragedy.
Several other comments have pointed out clear flaws in this device, both in terms of design (poor accessibility, inadequate protection from environmental hazards, and use-case problems) as well as technical flaws in this specific iteration (4G connectivity and level 2 charging). In classic defense-contractor fashion, it’s yesterday’s tech aimed at tomorrow.
But hey, wait, I’ve got a new complaint:
This particular device’s IP68 water resistance is pretty much top-notch. But digging a bit deeper, Rheinmetall’s website says that rating only applies to the electronics. The rest of the unit (Including the electric supply? The charging socket itself? Unclear.) is only IP54, which is significantly less resistant to the kind of conditions these things would see. And I really don’t think they considered the sort of conditions Americans can inflict. I don’t need to look any further than the downtown block where I live to see how these chargers would fare in a U.S. city.
As many others have remarked, real-world use would see the upward-facing socket filled with dust and debris in short order, just like the divots in the floor that my building’s front doors (usually fail to) lock into.
The hinged cover would likely be torn off within a couple months, and that’s just one minor example of the kind of hell that would be wrought on these. Is that display acrylic or glass? Either way, it’s destined to become illegibly opaque with scratches before long… assuming idle folks don’t try to bust it just for the heck of it.
Add to that the likelihood of theft others have pointed out: Reduced to scrap, 175 pounds of metal buys a lot of meth or fenty. Even with protective fasteners, life finds a way. Paying for parking with change has been a joke in my neighborhood for months because someone found a way of opening the meters, so the doors to the coin compartments have been hanging open all that time.
Humans aren’t the only antagonists this design faces, as others have noted. Take the decorative retro lamppost by my building’s front door as an example. Ours is a very dog-friendly property, but the many of those dog-owners aren’t very neighbor-friendly, so that hefty cast aluminum post sees a lot of lifted legs. So many, in fact, that a windstorm knocked it off of its badly corroded base after a few years.
That brings up another issue with the flush-to-curb concept: How often do you touch stuff down there? Especially when it’s dirty or damp? Like a $20 bill in a wet gutter, I think many people’s reaction to using these in all but ideal conditions would be “Eew, no.”
‘Nice concept, poor execution?’ Nope. This is just a bad idea all the way down.
I agree, especially on the criminal element’s potential response. Security screws mean nothing to a determined meth-head. My first Sargeant when I started working in the prison used to joke that when the apocalypse happens we all need to grab an inmate to take with us to save all our asses because nobody is as creative in macguyvering their way through life as they are.
Funny but remember your guests have a lot of time to think about “alternative” ways to do things when they dont have to worry about long work hours, bills, and all kinds of entertainment life throws at you.
While they’re inside, yes they have nothing but time, but once they’re on parole they don’t forget what they learned inside, and sadly far too few of them actually try to make a better life for themselves. Thus they’ll still get in there to steal shit.
As a side note, whenever I’m training a new officer I tell all of them the same thing “Essentially every person, with very few exceptions, that is in the prison is going to get out someday. They’re going to be your neighbor and mine, so why would we want them to fail.” That’s part of why I look for community partners to help the guys I supervise to find stable work and long term housing solutions, and look at every alternative I can as a sanction for their misconduct before returning someone to prison unless their actions pose a danger to the public, i.e. drug users use so lets look at therapy, but the child rapist that hooked up with a sex worker at the park should go back without exception.
Yes, true. Coming out from jail a person moves on in terms of the law but not with the community, the stigma remains and ironically leads to more more crime.
I remember being involved with renovations to a divided visiting room at the county jail. I asked about “tamper proof” screws for some trim and got some laughs from the staff. I was told unless the drive head breaks off or they are ground smooth, They will eventually be removed with a melted tooth brush handle. (-:
Great, if we lived in a world where stupid people didn’t sabotage stuff.
As a responsible dog owner who regular walks his canine companion…
This is not great, its going to be soaked with dog pee before you know it. Especially when they are popped up like a curb.
Clearly an idea from a designer and not an engineer.
Maybe in a country where the average person isn’t morbidly obese. The footage of lard and beached whale trying to plug into something on the ground would be better than the content at peopleofwalmart.
It’s not if it’s waterproof or weather resistant is it idiot American proof because I can tell you stupid Americans will do stupid things with these things and probably catch themselves on fire or electrocute themselves
“There is considerable crossover between the intelligence of the smartest bear and the dumbest tourist.”
-US Park Ranger explaining the difficulties involved designing a bear-proof trash can.
Rheinmetall innovates a new stylish curbside ash tray. Good luck with that.
Definitely designed in a more civilized country where people are unlikely to steal them or vandalize them just because they’re there. Waterproof is great, but that’s only one element it would encounter. What about salt, grit, and filth that can get inside? In snow country, they’d also have to deal with plows.
They make tanks. A kerbstone charger would be an easy one to armour up!
Cute idea, but these will get shredded by snow and the resulting snow removal tools / equipment.
They’re also left unattended on the street and apparently contain 176 pounds of scrap metal.
And general grit and grime.
Seems clever
Aside from looking kinda neat what does this do that a similarly compact bollard or lamp post style wouldn’t do better? It’s less obtrusive when a car isn’t present, but since these would be placed where cars tend to be parked for extended periods that doesn’t seem to be much of a benefit.
Mmm can’t imagine how upward facing connections might do in a country that has trouble with keeping concrete in one piece.
I have to imagine sooner ot later (hopefully sooner*), wireless charging EVs will be standardized and become common place. This eliminates all concerns about “plugging in” as it relates to automating plug-in charging, theft and vandalism.
I mean Could someone take a pick are to a charging pad that is flush with the street surface? Sure all possible theft and/or vandalism risks can not be completely eliminated.
Use of wireless charging seems to minimize the risk footprint as much as is possible.
*wireless charging in evs IS an existing (still improving) technology, still the efficiency rates are already incredibly high (+90% charging efficiency) so that should not be used as an excuse… don’t let perfect be the enemy of good…
GM had that tech back with the EV1 in a way. You dropped a paddle into slot. It worked great, unless you had a pacemaker.
Street parking EV owners would be thrilled with a curbside 110v ac outlet. That’s a very old technology that could be deployed cheaply and quickly. I wouldn’t hold my breath for streetside wireless chargers.
Don’t let frying a few cats be the enemy of good.
Where are you getting 90%? Some lab test using million dollar tech that will never work in the real world? Wireless phone chargers are only 70-80% efficient, and those are touching the phone.
Beaming the power another 6 inches through the air is going to kill efficiency. plus phone charging is basically a rounding error on your electric bill, but using 20% more energy to charge a car is a massive increase on an electric grid that already can’t keep up with wired charging.
Simple google/Bing/DuckDuckGo/Safari search…
1st page results for ev wireless charging (real world today) efficiency ranges between approx. 85 – 93%. Challenge is there are a Lot of variables.
With “breakthrough” lab testing reporting ev wireless efficiency at 96%
By saying “90%” I was simplifying what the results seemed to be reasonably achievable
Just 1 result from the 1st page search results…
https://www.energysage.com/ev-charging/wireless-ev-charging/
Of course I would love to see more independent testing results proving real world ev charging efficiency results
Even if it works the way they claim, they also say it will cost thousands for a home charger versus hundreds for present tech.
It’s also not implemented by any automakers, so you’d have to void your ev’s warranty to install the coil on the vehicle.
It’s really not too difficult to use cables, certainly not to the point that I’d void the warranty by hacking a critical vehicle system to avoid it. Plugging in the cable is the only physical exertion involved in charging,and then you get to rest for at least 20 minutes.
Haha my original reply arguing in favor of wireless as a superior curb side charging solution was in response to people arguing how/why this “built into the curb” solution which requires physically plugging in won’t work…
– “great it works where you live in Candyland where everyone is an angel… tweaker here will steal that charging cable / vandalize your cable…..”
– or “yeah but what about snow? plows will demolish that stuff right quick….
Well you know what a plow won’t demolish? A charging coil built in and flush with the pavement.
You know what a tweaker is going to have a lot harder time stealing / vandalizing? A charging coil built in and flush with the pavement.
You are absolutely correct currently there aren’t any ev makers (that I know of) that have the needed wireless charging receiver built in to the bottom of their vehicles.
And yes wireless charging is (currently) more expensive.
Economies of scale will reduce the costs.
I don’t have answers to the chicken/egg problem foe adoption.
It is an incredible time to be alive to see such rapid technological advancement!
Dude, those coils have to be at the road surface to work. Plows will chew them up in short order. Any small road imperfection in the fall is a gaping hole by spring.
But the main problem with wireless charging EVs is that it doesn’t yet exist.
While a great idea overall, I still think there EV ports facing mostly weather-related hurdles in temperate and boreal climates.
Is the built in heater robust enough to overcome midwestern U.S. snowfall, liberal applications of road salt/brine, mounds of snow inevitably piled up by urban snowplows on streets and commercial parking lots, and the dolts who’ll invariably leave the access doors open or outright break them? There’s also the matter of many urban areas banning on-street parking when there’s a little as 2″ of snow.
If these devices are tested in cities like Buffalo, Chicago, and NYC and survive relatively unscathed, I’ll be sold.
While everyone is worried about snow and dirt, it seems more likely that this will quickly fill up with dirt to the point that a plug will no longer engage.
I’m holding out for curbside gas pumps.
This looks like a good solution for city environments. While Cologne isn’t Great Falls MT or some equally hash winter environment a year of on the ground testing is a decent baseline.
I can’t wait to see what road salt does to those bad boys.
You should point out here that “bring your own cable” is quite common in Europe for public level 2 charging already, and makes a ton of sense for the US well with cords not always reaching far enough, getting cut and stolen by vandals/thieves, etc. Doesn’t work for liquid-cooled DC fast-charging lines, but does for everything short of that.
I’m torn because curbside charging is absolutely something that needs to expand, but I’m not at all sure this is the right way to go about it. I just don’t see this surviving long in actual city conditions.
The Twin Cities have installed something like this, curb side level 2 chargers in areas with lots of apartments and/or shops and restaurants. Albeit just the typical pole style charger instead of in the curb. Haven’t used one before but they seem pretty convenient and the cords are extra long to reach driver side charge ports.