British startup Urban Electric has released an image of its UEone, a retractable pop-up charging hub for residential on-street parking.

The company says its charger is a solution for the 50% of UK city drivers who park on the street at night. The company plans to install the units as fast charging hubs on residential streets and on-street public parking bays. The retractable units will charge vehicles overnight during off-peak hours, and are designed to minimally impact the urban streetscape.

Urban Electric was chosen by government-backed initiative Innovate UK for a £4-million demonstration project in which it will deploy 108 charge points across 18 hubs in Dundee, Scotland, and Plymouth, England. The project will integrate hub charging with the Appy parking platform to provide a seamless parking and charging experience which will include road sensors that let drivers know if a parking bay is available. The project will also include electric car sharing in the hubs.

Urban Electric co-founder Olivier Freeling-Wilkinson said, “More than 7.5 million UK drivers park their cars on-street at night. These people lack the convenience of off-street parking for charging and so are most likely to be the laggards in EV adoption. However, their cars are located right above the low voltage network, and by accessing this safely and without causing street clutter our charging solution provides the convenience of at-home charging that every EV driver wants, but until now was unable to have.”

Source: Urban Electric