Back in 2013, my wife and I leased our first electric vehicle, a Nissan Leaf. At that time, we were one of only 220,000 EV owners worldwide.
By the end of last year, that number had exploded to 4.79 million. That’s a compound annual growth rate of 55.29%.
Every automaker on the planet is clamoring to get into the sector. With that growth rate, I’m not surprised.
There’s just one hurdle that needs to be addressed for the EV takeover to truly take off: charging infrastructure.
Any company that solves this problem will likely see big gains, leaving plenty of room for investors to profit.
Parking Problems
EV growth in cities is slower than it is in suburban areas because of a lack of charging infrastructure.
Most suburban homes have off-street parking. And it’s relatively easy to install a charging station in a garage or carport.
But that’s not the case in urban areas. Few city dwellers have off-street parking at their residences.
And then there’s the permitting issue. In Seattle, it takes five permits to install a curbside EV charging station. Not surprisingly, only one has been installed so far.
However, there are some solutions to this problem.
Many private and public garages are adding charging infrastructure. It represents an additional source of revenue for the owner or municipality.
And it’s much easier to install multiple charging stations in one location. This is the model that Tesla has successfully implemented with its Supercharger network. Taking this approach is cheaper, and permitting is usually simpler.
But what if a charging hub could magically rise up curbside when an EV parks next to it… and disappear when the EV owner leaves?
Pop-Up Charging
Urban Electric Networks is developing just that.
This private British startup is getting ready to go into commercial manufacturing of its pop-up UEone EV charging hubs. The design preserves the clean urban streetscape by disappearing when not in use…
About 43% (8 million people) of British households park their cars on the street. In some areas of London, 85% of residents park cars on the street.
Enter the UEone. It handily solves the urban EV charging hub issue.
Urban’s app-operated UEone charging hub delivers 7 kilowatts of power when in use. Once a vehicle is disconnected, the UEone fully retracts underground.
Billing is done through the app. This makes the charging process seamless for EV owners.
I expect we’ll see similar EV charging solutions for urban environments in the future. After all, these are still the early days of EV adoption.
I’m an EV owner and engineering geek. As such, I’m extremely focused on this and other areas of the transportation sector that will help electrification take hold – and take off.
You can bet I’ll be watching Urban Electric’s progress. As always, I’ll be on the lookout for potential ways to invest in this rapidly growing sector.
Good investing,
Dave