Oxford to trial ‘pop-up’ on-street EV charge points

Oxford will begin trialling ‘pop-up’ on-street electric vehicle charging, which will retract underground when not in use.

20 UEone retractable pavement bollards by Urban Electric will be installed on streets with on road, off pavement parking. The scheme will be available to residents who currently have electric vehicles, and those who want to own an electric vehicle.

The UEone was developed specifically to provide charging for the 43 per cent of UK households who have on-street parking. The charging points will be app-operated and will retract underground when not in use.

The UEone uses the same SmartCable as Ubitricity lamp posts, allowing residents to charge at any UEone retractable bollard or Ubitricity lamp post.

The successful bid was made in partnership with Duku, Urban Electric and Oxford City Council and has been awarded £473,595 of funding. The overall cost of the project will be £600,000, with the remaining funding coming from Urban Electric via private investment.

The funding was awarded under Innovate UK’s Infrastructure Systems competition.

The project will support the existing Go Ultra Low Oxford on-street residential charging project, which has seen 100 electric vehicle charging points installed in residential streets across Oxford.

Poppy Welch, Head of the joint industry and Government funded Go Ultra Low campaign, said: “For those homes in the UK without access to off-street parking, innovations like the UEone are a great option to ensure more and more people around the country have access to charging infrastructure. It’s great to see the work that Oxford – one of the government’s Go Ultra low Cities – is doing to enable people without off-street parking to charge at home. We’d encourage other cities to also take ambitious steps to ensure everyone is able to charge at home - the government provides funding for local authorities to help with the costs of the installation of on-street charging points for residential use.”