Many critics of alternative energy vehicles cite an underdeveloped charging network as one of their main concerns about Factors such as this are stopping consumers making the switch from petrol and diesel vehicles.
BMW have been releasing green models for some time now, not content with creating hybrid vehicles many of us know and love, they are now adding charging points to their ever growing list of services. Rather than creating an entire standalone network, BMW has innovatively combined a street lamp and a charging station to bring power to the masses.
The combination makes perfect sense after some thought, street lamps already have the necessary infrastructure and wires to deliver electricity to that location, so adding a charging socket to that would only require a small amount of work. Of course the energy won’t be free, payable via an app on your mobile phone users will make a payment whilst at the charging point and receive a top up of fuel delivered to their engines.
Plus it seems the innovation creation will be hitting the streets sooner rather than later. Munich will be the first city to host the pilot programme, and there are already 2 prototype points outside of BMW's Munich based base.
To close, a quote from Peter Schwarzenbauer, a BMW board of management member, who said
"Seamless charging infrastructure is essential if we want to see more electric vehicles on the road in our cities in the future."