The frustration of searching for a free charging station in a parking garage is recognizable to many electric drivers. Often the special spots are occupied by gasoline cars or charging pole stickers. In China, they are currently rolling out an ingenious solution. Instead of driving the car to the charging station, the charging station there comes to the car through the ceiling.
Despite being relatively well equipped with charging infrastructure, charging in large office and retail parking garages remains a pain point. Installing a fixed charging station at every parking space is financially unfeasible and requires too heavy a power connection.
The result is a handful of reserved spots that are often occupied by drivers who have long been fully charged or by people with fuel cars who disregard the rules.
In China, they are tackling this logistical problem in a fundamentally different way. Several parking garages in the country are now equipped with a system of mobile charging stations that move along rails on the ceiling.
The charging cable descends from the sky
The system works as simply as it is effective. Once a driver has parked his or her electric car somewhere in the parking garage, he or she scans a QR code via a smartphone app. The system records the car’s location.
As soon as a mobile charging unit is free, it travels via rails on the ceiling precisely above the parked car. The unit positions itself above the loading ramp, after which a cable rolls down.
Although the movement via the ceiling is fully automated, the act of plugging in is still partly human work. A parking garage employee inserts the cable into the car, after which charging begins. Once the battery is full, the cable is disconnected and the robot rolls through the ceiling directly to the next waiting customer somewhere else in the garage.
Every parking spot becomes a charging spot
The brilliance of this system is that it completely eliminates the need for specially reserved loading bays. Every regular parking spot under the tracks potentially turns into a charging station.
This eliminates irritation over charging pole stickers and eliminates the need to install dozens of fixed charging stations. One robot can effortlessly charge several cars in succession during a working day.
Incidentally, the current system is limited to regular AC charging (similar to the charging pole in the street). For heavy fast charging, this mobile ceiling solution is not yet technically suitable.
Still, this shows China is shifting focus. Companies are investing tens of millions of dollars in this type of automated charging solution. Tech giant Huawei, meanwhile, is already working on the reverse version, in which not the charging pole moves, but the car independently drives through the garage to a fast charger while the owner is shopping.
Image source: Adobe Stock
