BMW Will Use Street Lights To Help Charge Electric Vehicles

The thing about electric vehicles is that they need charging. This isn’t so much an issue if charging did not take long and was widely available. This is compared to hybrids or fuel-based vehicles where you can find a gas station just about anywhere and it will only take you a few minutes before you’re good to go.

Well it seems that BMW has come up with an interesting solution, which is to use street lights to help charge electric vehicles. Given that street lights are almost everywhere, the availability of outlets could end up being more than gas stations. The German car company has recently announced that they will be running a pilot program in Munich next year.

In order to take advantage of the existing infrastructure, BMW claims to have created two prototypes, one of which is the “Light and Charge” street lights which combines LEDs and the company’s ChargeNow recharging stations into a single device. According to Peter Schwarzenbauer, Member of the Board of Management of BMW AG, “Seamless charging infrastructure is essential if we want to see more electric vehicles on the road in our cities in the future.”

This isn’t the first time that such a solution has been presented, although BMW could very well be one of the first to actually start making it a reality. It is unclear as to when this concept will became more widespread, but presumably it will depend on how well-received the pilot program in Munich is, but what say you? Is this a good idea?

Tyler Lee
Categories: Green, Transportation
Tags: bmw