Electric cars that charge like mobile phones

If mobile phones relied on charging stations, it’s unlikely there would be six billion of them in use today. Why should it be any different with electric cars? Is it any surprise there is a paucity of charging infrastructure when the charging stations are expensive to install and at risk from misuse and damage?

Lack of charging infrastructure is often blamed for the poor take up of electric cars, so a young Berlin-based start-up ubitricity has addressed the problem by adopting the mobile phone approach – give people their own portable charging meters.

The company considers bulky and expensive charging stations a barrier to re-charging infrastructure so it offers a mobile electricity meter that stays in the boot of your electric car allowing you to charge your vehicle at ubitricity sockets.

The expense is in the charger rather than the sockets, which the company is able to offer at a fraction of a conventional charging station. For this reason, ubitricity plans to subsidise the installation of the sockets.

How does it work?

Using ubitricity is similar to having a mobile phone – it simply keeps track of how much electricity you have used when you charge your car. The standard charging plug that comes with your electric car is plugged into a ubitricity socket, which is the size of a shoe box. A meter keeps track of how much electricity has been used and once complete, use a mobile phone connection to passes the information to the relevant electricity provider.