- A London borough is installing 500 kerbside electric car chargers
- The solution is a gift for owners who still cannot afford a wall box for the home
- An increase in slower, cheaper charging makes electric ownership more attractive
The London Borough of Harrow announced this week that the region is aiming for 500 kerbside EV chargers by October 2028. Of the 225 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 struggle to install home charging solutions due to many restrictions that include a lack of driveways, complicated communal parking or a lack of off-street parking.
While some municipalities have tried solutions including electric car charger holes – which create a safe space to track cumbersome electric car chargers from a house, across a pavement and into a vehicle – this is not working for a massive number of city dwellers.
According to a study by Vauxhall, which contacted all 414 local authorities in the UK about their future plans for local charging solutions by 2023, it found that 40% of UK households do not have driveways – rising to a massive 60% in urban areas.
This means that a large percentage of potential electric car owners are missing out on cheap car charging that makes the technology so appealing.
Anyone who has to resort to the public fast-charging network (if available nearby) will often find that a modern electric vehicle is actually more expensive to run than an internal combustion engine counterpart, as some fast-charging outlets charge over £1 /$1 / AU$3 per charge. kW.
Filling the big battery in a Porsche Taycan or a Kia EV9, for example, can cost upwards of £100 /$140 / AU$200 to cover a paltry 300-350 miles. It’s thirsty V8 territory.
“Without targeted investment and innovative solutions such as community charging, kerbside charging and affordable fast charging across the country, residents in rural and less affluent urban areas may find it challenging to switch to electric vehicles,” explains Professor Christian Brand, Emeritus Professor of Transport, Energy and Climate Change at Oxford University.
Practical and cheap charging overnight
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 simply plugging in at home is not possible.
Currently, my modest house does not benefit from a driveway, nor is the street parking close enough to the house to run a cable. We have a shared parking lot, but the committee that looks after it is not interested in installing electric car chargers.
The only sensible solution is a kerbside charger like the one Char.gy has supplied to UK local government for years. In 2025, it reached a milestone by delivering its millionth charging session.
However, the 4,900 charging points installed in the UK (admittedly, most are in London) are clever in that they are tied to lampposts and other existing infrastructure or come in the form of discrete poles on the pavement.
Users provide their own charging cable, but can then take advantage of cheaper nightly charging rates, where midnight to
Although not as cheap as some domestic fares, which can be as low as 7p per kW (approx. 9¢ / AU13¢ per KW), it represents a huge saving compared to the public fast charging network.
What is the waiting time?
Curbside charging of electric cars feels like the most sensible solution to me. The low energy outlets of 7 kWh or 22 kWh mean the solutions are more subtle and can easily blend into existing infrastructure, while the convenience and cost savings of charging while the vehicle is parked overnight makes perfect sense.
Every 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 plowing ahead with the technology, Vauxhall’s Electric Streets of Britain research found that 69% of councils and local authorities had installed no on-street charging points by 2024.
What’s more, 71.6% of municipalities confirmed that they had no plans to install home chargers at that time. However, a more recent update suggests that the number of municipalities with at least one dedicated EV charging policy officer has increased from 31% in 2023 to 51% in 2025, while 44% of municipalities say they had installed at least one 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 large-scale simultaneous overnight EV demand,” explains Philip Clarke, founder and CEO of TUAL, a company that overcomes grid and vehicle constraints with scalable, modular solutions that enable fleets to take control of charging operations.
“You can install chargers on lampposts, but if the local transformer is already close to capacity, the power must be limited or the network reinforced. Reinforcement takes time and capital, and this is where projects stall,” he noted.
“The limitation is in network headroom; the UK network is resilient but it was not designed to deliver high capacity at the edge of the network. Edge charging is a visible example of that limitation,” he adds.
Slowly but surely
Local solutions, such as readily available curbside charging, appear to be one of the simplest ways to accelerate the use of electric vehicles in those areas that lack an affordable and robust public charging network.
Companies such as Trojan Energy in the UK are bringing fresh ideas to the table with a “flat and flush” charging outlet embedded in the pavement. The Community brings its own, admittedly bulky, charging adapter that fits neatly into the outlet.
Once connected, users can enjoy up to 22kWh charging speeds, with billing and tariffs all handled automatically via the adapter. It’s a somewhat bulky solution, but it allows the Trojan community to charge at domestic rates at 1,200 public charging points.
What about the US?
It’s a similar story in North America, where a third of American households are in multi-unit buildings with no easy way to install home 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 primarily designed for shopping and commercial areas rather than residential areas, 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. Distributed Access Energy Points (DEAPs) negate the need to clog sidewalks with bulky charging points.
Companies such as Voltpost and EVgo have also made some progress with both kerbside EV chargers and lamppost-based systems, but not at the rate seen in the UK and other European countries.
Recently, Ubitricity teamed up with oil giant Shell to rebrand their charging points Shell Recharge in the UK. These discreet charging sockets are tied to lampposts, bollards and other unassuming pieces of street furniture.
There are currently 14,400 public charging stations on the street in the network, but since it has the backing of a multinational such as Shell, these numbers will only increase rapidly.
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