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Austria Converts Phone Booths To EV Chargers

Posted by samzenpus on from the calling-electricity dept.

separsons writes "Telekom Austria, a telecommunications company, aims to convert obsolete public phone booths into electric vehicle recharging stations. The company unveiled its first station yesterday in Vienna and hopes to create 29 more stations by the end of the year. The stations may not be super popular now, but they should be soon; Austria's motor vehicle association says the country will likely have 405,000 electric vehicles on the road by the year 2020."

6 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. Something is wrong here... by T+Murphy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A company with outdated infrastructure changing it's business model to adapt to changing technology- all in a quick, relatively efficient process? Yeah, you've got to be pulling my leg.

    Wait, do you mean Corporate America isn't doing it right?

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    1. Re:Something is wrong here... by masterwit · · Score: 5, Interesting

      But in future, payment, which is expected to cost a single-digit euro sum, will be via mobile phone, Ametsreiter said.

      Ah the irony...I personally welcome new healthy ideas into any market. (Free market with healthy regulation, whatever no political arguments needed here)

      Some more info:

      Telekom Austria's charging stations will leverage the group’s existing infrastructure: the company currently operates 13,500 telephone booths countrywide, of which 700 are multimedia stations. In the first phase, the focus will be on multimedia stations that offer on-street parking opportunities for electric vehicles. By installing additional charging points, each telephone booth will be able to recharge more than one vehicle at a time. By year-end 2010 a total of 30 charging stations will be on stream. According to a survey by Verkehsclub Osterreich, an association promoting environmentally sustainable, socially just and economically efficient mobility, the number of electric vehicles will significantly increase in Austria over the next few years, with e-scooters exceeding 60,000 and e-cars 115,000 by 2015.

      http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=33006&email=html

      Yes they did not go out on a limb to invest in phone booths, but using existing architecture in an economically and environmentally friendly way to address an emerging market, nice.

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    2. Re:Something is wrong here... by drsmithy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As a customer of Telekom Austria, I can assure you that nothing about that company is quick and efficient. They're the former state-run monopoly.

      People love to say this scornfully, but they seem not to realise that if "Telekom $SOME_COUNTRY" _wasn't_ a "former state-run monopoly" then if they didn't live within a hundred metres of their nearest neighbour they wouldn't even _have_ a phone service, and the mere idea of a practically free phone standing on the street would be absolutely laughable.

  2. Re:One question by SirWinston · · Score: 5, Informative

    > What's a phone booth?

    It's like a Police Box, but without the time travel...

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  3. Re:One question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    > What's a phone booth?

    It's like a Police Box, but without the time travel...

    Whoa! Dude! That's totally bogus.

  4. bikes, not cars? by serps · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Seems more practical to recharge bikes (either electric-assisted, or motorcycles), rather than cars.

    • You can physically get a bike closer to the telephone box than you can a car.
    • You can fill a bike battery an appreciable amount in an hour, given the system's power generation constraints.
    • You can fit a bunch of charging bikes around a box with bike rack technology
    • There's thousands of bike riders in that country already, unlike the car-heavy US
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