[londons_explore]

EV charging hardware is very expensive at the moment.

A 100 Amp relay good for 10kW is < $2, yet the cheapest similar EV charging system is easily $1000.

I imagine a future where the people who make streetlights just integrate a couple of sockets in the bottom of every streetlamp. Total human time to fit one to an existing streetlamp should be only 15 minutes or so, so they can be rolled out en-mass.

[speedplane]

> A 100 Amp relay good for 10kW is < $2, yet the cheapest similar EV charging system is easily $1000.

The grid operates at 10kV. Most electric cars accept voltages less than one tenth of that. The cost is creating a large transformers.

That said, large transformers like these are pretty standard in sub-stations, it's still not clear to me why our existing infrastructure can't support super charging everywhere.

[jakobegger]

I think it's inevitable that this will happen.

It sounds like there should be a startup out there that sells small weatherproof boxes with an outlet and a relay and a microcontroller inside, that makes it trivial to sell electricity to everyone who uses an app. There's really no reason such a box needs to cost $1000.