Voltpost Debuts Transformative Lamppost Electric Vehicle Charger at Climate Week NYC 2022
NEW YORK: Voltpost, Inc. debuts a lamppost retrofit electric vehicle charging system at Newlab in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, ushering in a new era of chargers designed for city streets.
Voltpost is a startup based in New York and San Francisco. It has developed a unique lamppost retrofit charger which enables cities to rapidly scale public electric vehicle charging infrastructure, achieve climate targets, and support drivers with convenient and affordable charging access. Voltpost is presenting this innovative solution for the first time during Climate Week NYC 2022 at the Hardware Meetup: Climate Edition event on September 22 hosted by Newlab, Scale for Climate Tech, and Women Who Hardware. The company is excited to welcome guests to Newlab to experience the Voltpost charging system affixed to a standard New York City Department of Transportation lamppost.
In New York, approximately 1% of cars on the road today are electric, but the state must rapidly increase adoption of electric vehicles to meet climate goals. Indeed, President Biden’s goal is for half of all vehicles sold in the United States to be electric by 2030. This is especially important in cities, where local air pollution and congestion make the need for electrified transportation even more pressing. However, existing charging options in cities are scarce and inconvenient. Although 80% of charging across the country is expected to occur at home, approximately half of city drivers do not have access to private parking or garages in which to charge. The lack of charging access is the main barrier to electric vehicle adoption in cities as well as in suburbs for people without private parking. Finding ways to scale publicly available charging infrastructure is critical to achieve the clean mobility transition.
Voltpost was founded with the mission to decarbonize mobility by democratizing charging access. The company achieves this by retrofitting lampposts into smart electric vehicle charging stations managed by a mobile application. The solution aims to accelerate EV adoption by providing cities scalable curbside charging for drivers. Voltpost strives to ensure that people across all socioeconomic backgrounds have equitable access to the benefits that electric mobility brings to communities. As a purpose-driven organization, Voltpost operates with a community-first approach, ensuring that local stakeholders are empowered to influence the way infrastructure is deployed.
The Voltpost charging system leverages a first-of-its-kind approach: a modular, upgradable, and noninvasive unit that encases existing lampposts and leverages the existing conduit. The patent-pending system has two charging modules in the curbside configuration and up to four charging modules in the parking lot configuration. This modular approach reduces operating and maintenance cost while maximizing uptime by allowing efficient replacement of faulty units. The Voltpost charger is constructed with rugged weatherproof materials. Its design includes responsive LED lights that indicate charging status, a smart meter to track electricity consumption, cloud connectivity to mobile phones, and a pedestrian friendly cable management system. The Voltpost mobile application has discovery, parking, charging, billing, and impact features. This app provides drivers access to power from the grid while the cloud-based management system measures charging events. Drivers get visibility of Voltposts on a map, make reservations in advance, track charging remotely, pay based on electricity consumed, plus gain insights on financial and environmental savings.
In May 2022, Voltpost was chosen to participate in the DOT Studio, a partnership between the New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) and Newlab. The DOT Studio supports startups to build, test, and launch advanced technology solutions across the focus areas of electric vehicle charging and pavement marking analysis in New York City. It aims to generate learnings and de-risk technology solutions by collaborating with startups to solve NYC’s most pressing transportation challenges. This provides Voltpost the opportunity to pilot lamppost charging in NYC with support from the NYC DOT, Con Edison, and Newlab.
The DOT Studio pilot can inform the broad deployment of light pole chargers in 2023 and beyond. Voltpost provides a cost-effective and scalable solution for the DOT’s goals, including its objective to install 10,000 curbside charging stations throughout the city. The network would generate new revenue and insights from charging, while accelerating decarbonization by spurring EV adoption in the city. New Yorkers will benefit from accessing convenient and community-friendly public charging. Voltpost won a $60,000 Manufacturers and Entrepreneurs-In-Residence program grant from Scale for Climate Tech managed by SecondMuse in August 2022 to cover project costs related to the DOT Studio.
Voltpost has also confirmed a demonstration project in Q4 2022 at the Detroit Smart Parking Lab (“DSPL”) in Detroit, Michigan. The DSPL is an open innovation platform for parking-inspired mobility technologies, and is a collaboration between Bedrock, Bosch, Ford and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC). On August 1, 2022, the company was awarded a $65,000 grant from the MEDC’s Michigan Mobility Funding Platform (MMFP) for the deployment of its product within the DSPL to simulate a curbside charging environment. The Voltpost team is thrilled to deploy lamppost charging in the DSPL to accelerate access to clean mobility in Michigan.
The U.S. has a major opportunity to transition to electric vehicles, with many states following California’s lead in banning the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035. According to BloombergNEF, demand for EV charging outlets will be nearly 2 million by 2035. The US Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides $2.5 billion “for communities and corridors through a competitive grant program that will support innovative approaches and ensure that charger deployment meets Administration priorities such as supporting rural charging, improving local air quality and increasing EV charging access in disadvantaged communities.” The Inflation Reduction Act passed in August expands credits for new electric vehicle purchases, and institutes new credits for used EVs.
While the transition to electrified transportation is well underway, it is still not moving fast enough. The Voltpost team is united by a shared mission to curb climate change. In spite of climate challenges, the team remains hopeful to make a measurable positive impact. Voltpost aims to give everyone access to clean transportation by providing charging for all communities. Voltpost is accelerating the transition to electric vehicles, and the team is excited to share its innovative technology with the world!
For inquiries, please contact media@voltpost.com.
