Flowbird Smart City UK is increasing its range of electric vehicle points available to local authorities to include ultra-rapid charging units offering speeds in excess of 100kWh.
The latest additions come as a report from *Deloitte highlights the impact that a lack of charging infrastructure in public places is having on the adoption of electric cars among the wider public. According to the survey, one third of UK consumers say that a lack of sufficient charging points remains the greatest barrier to switching to full electric vehicles.
Flowbird Smart City UK’s Park & Charge solution has been designed to enable local authorities to leverage their existing parking network assets, notably through a shared payment and management system.
“By utilising common parking and EV charging payment and back office platforms, councils can optimise administrative resources, take an estate-wide view of their assets, collect and analyse integrated data and reconcile revenue reports for both services,” said Adam Sharp, Digital Services Manager at Flowbird. “Critically, it also simplifies the consumer experience because they can access and pay for both parking and EV charging via the Flowbird app, parking terminals or a white-labelled web portal.”
The move from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles is seen as a fundamental driver in the UK government’s Net Zero ambitions, particularly since the proposed ban on the sale of petrol and diesel powered cars has been brought forward to 2035.
“Local authorities have a vital role to play in enabling this transition to a low carbon future because greater investment in public EV charging points will be needed to support the estimated 40+% of households with no access to off-street parking,” said Adam.
The range of EV chargers connected to Flowbird includes a line-up of smart ‘Fast’, ‘Rapid’ and ‘Ultra-Rapid’ units, offering speeds from 7kWh to over 100kWh+ with both single user and multi-user access. The DC station enables full charge to be reached in around 30 minutes.
Flowbird’s established cloud-based back office system enables local authorities to configure and control charging infrastructure via an online interface, with easy management of end users, pricing and hardware.
www.flowbird.group/smartcity/uk/solutions/environment/ev-charging
*Deloitte report: www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/insights/us/articles/22869-electric-vehicles/DI_Electric-Vehicles.pdf