Electric vehicle charging infrastructure is a growing area of concern with sales of new petrol and diesel vehicles set to end by 2030. However, “every parking space becomes a charging spot,” with Belgian firm Uze and its fleet of e-cargo bikes loaded with giant batteries.
The idea apparently came to Uze founder Dieter Schotte four years ago when he was driving his EV round Antwerp looking for a parking spot with a charger when he was low on battery.
It is both simple and weirdly jarring. You park, book an appointment via the Uze app, and then someone cycles over with a massive battery and charges your car for you.
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We say ‘cycles’. The battery-carrying vehicle in fact seems to be more of a four-wheel stand-up electric scooter thing.
We’re pretty sure it’s a Mobilitum Stint. While this is only a 20km/h vehicle, it’s one driven by a 1.7kW motor – a necessity given the significant weight of the car-charging battery it’s tasked with carting around.
Uze says the charging process takes 40 minutes. One of their videos then shows an employee arriving back at the car on a conventional e-scooter to further add to the vehicular confusion.
“By powering your vehicle exactly when and where you need it, we eliminate charging downtime and maximize convenience,” says Uze.
Their website puts a lot of emphasis on car-sharing companies and fleet management – which is presumably where they’re getting a lot of their business so far – but the service appears to be open to private owners as well.
This is not the first mobile charging innovation we’ve reported on. In Vietnam businesses can phone a blackout hotline and temporarily power their premises from an electric motorbike battery.