Gavin Lawlor

The solution in London is, well, they have a number of solutions, but the one that's reported in the press today is essentially a slot in the footpath that has a gap in it that you can place your cable into.

So you're able to

plug one end of your car charger into your wall socket on your property, run the cable through the slot, essentially going underneath the footpath coming out to your car at the curb.

And that's one of the solutions they have.

And another solution they have is where they put the car chargers into lamp standards.

And another one that they're looking at as well is something like what they do

with boats on marinas where they have a pillar which has a number of charging points on it, four or five, and you use a swipe card to be able to plug your car into that and avail of your own home electricity rate.

So the way it works is there's a proprietary system.

It's essentially cut as exactly as you say, you cut the channel in the footpath.

It's wide enough.

It's about a hundred mil wide or so, or slightly less than that.

And it's a contraption that's the full width of the footpath that has a slot in the top with brushes on it so that it holds the cable into the slot.

And it's a metal channel so that there's only a gap of the width of the actual wire to push through in brushes.

And the brushes will stop the cable popping back out until you pull it back out.

It is, but again, people will be nervous of it because it requires the homeowner to properly make sure that the cable is properly secured in the channel, because if it pokes out a little bit or it's not properly put in, well, then it's still a trip hazard.

So people will be nervous about that.

But I do think it's a really good solution to the problem.

In the UK, it's the local authority to do it.

And you apply to have it done.

Essentially, the channel is a piece of equipment that they buy.