Simple and cable-free charging of electric vehicles in public spaces: tim carsharing electric cars in the innovative city of Graz automatically charge using Matrix Charging® technology from Easelink.
Electromobility in Austria is just getting started. Out of over 5 million registered cars in Austria, the share of electric vehicles is not even 1%. The roughly 32,000 registered electric vehicles can currently make use of about 5,000 publicly accessible charging points. Battery-powered vehicles are particularly well suited for urban regions and are experiencing 40% annual growth in Austria. The breakthrough for electromobility depends heavily on an expansion of the charging infrastructure. The need for further development of the urban public charging infrastructure is tremendous.
(Sources: Statistics Austria, BEÖ)
“For a number of years, Holding Graz has operated one of the leading carsharing offerings in Austria, tim – täglich.intelligent.mobil (daily.intelligent.mobile), with over 2,100 users and 500,000 kilometers traveled with the electric car fleet,” explains Holding Graz CEO Wolfgang Malik. Especially for e-carsharing charging stations at multimodal traffic nodes, an intensive search is under way for better charging options as an alternative to existing charging systems, such as wall or pillar stations. The competition between parking spaces and walkways as well as the lack of surfaces for installing cable-based charging systems make it difficult to expand the prevalence of these types of charging stations in urban areas. The installation of charging stations and the cables running between the stations and the electric vehicles also create barriers in public spaces.