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German Firm Aims to Make Electric Car Charging More Ubiquitous

artup in Germany called Ubitricity is attempting to make electric-car charging ubiquitous with a mobile electric meter that drivers can carry around in their trunk. The company is making its first thousand plugs available this year.

The expansion of electric cars has been anything but spectacular, and a major constraint has been a lack of charging infrastructure and “range anxiety” getting the better of consumers. Late last year luxury electric sports car manufacturer Tesla Motors (TSLA) began tackling at least that perception with solar powered charging stations where Tesla drivers can charge for free.

Berlin-based Ubitricity is trying to tackle the problem of increasing charging options for electric cars in a different way altogether. The company wants to do away with what it says are bulky and expensive charging stations and replace them with a mobile electricity meter that will stay in the trunk of your electric car and allow you to charge at Ubitricity sockets, whether they be at your home, your office, or at the mall.

The advantage that Ubitricity claims is that the sockets themselves can be provided at a fraction of the cost of a conventional charging station, and its business model is to subsidize the price of a socket, making it competitive with the price of a standard power plug installed in a garage or at a parking place. The company says it will be able to do this because the intelligence will be in the meter that stays with the car.

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