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REVEALED ‘Barrier-free’ design offers hope for less-able drivers who want to switch to EVs, but ca Chris Rosamond WHAT WE WANT Chris_Rosamond@autovia.co.uk
DESIGN agency Duku has revealed a world-leading, fully accessible public charger for electric cars, complete with a range of features intended to remove barriers for less-able drivers. The new 7-22kW charger design has a patented fully assisted cable feed that is operated by buttons on the plug, so it can be deployed one-handed. A motorised drum delivers only the length of cable required, removing the effort of coiling and uncoiling. There’s an accessible user interface designed to meet guidance on optimal graphics, information and colour use, and the charger features contactless payment so it doesn’t need a touchscreen, buttons or a mobile phone app to operate. The unit rotates 90 degrees so you can swivel it out of direct sunlight or point the cable towards your vehicle. The cable, and the unit itself, are coloured to improve visibility and reduce the hazard for partially sighted pedestrians. Significantly, the design has no vulnerable cabinet that requires protection from parking scrapes or bumps. This means the charger can be fitted at road level, with no obstacles for wheelchair users, who can easily get close to the unit. The secret is a crashresistant base with a self-righting post that protects the internal high-voltage cables. The plastic shroud at the base of the post is designed to deform to absorb light impacts, or be quickly and inexpensively replaced following a heavier bump. Duku claims its ‘plug-and-play’ system means a unit can be replaced in 10 minutes using a pre-installed groundbox. TV presenter, journalist and accessibility consultant Emily Yates, who drives and uses a wheelchair, participated in a recent trial of
● Urgent provision of accessible EV charge sites ● Government regulation on minimum numbers ● Companies to meet Equality Act 2010 obligation ● More people talking about EV accessibility
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Emily Yates tried the new charger and said the design would tempt her to get an electric car the charger in Dundee. “I find driving really liberating,” she said. “Unfortunately, due to the lack of accessible charging infrastructure in the current market, I am yet to own an electric vehicle. Having reviewed Duku’s new charger design that provides a completely barrier-free solution for my particular requirements, this may well change in the near future!” Duku director Andrew Aylesbury told Auto Express: “Problems identified from initial research were predominantly the
weight and difficulty of using cables, and obstructions around the base. A ‘tethered’ charger means the user does not need their own cable, and we then challenged ourselves to overcome the issue of moving the cable to the car and removing the need for bollards around the base.” He confirmed the unit is being developed for mass production, potentially as soon as 2024. The new charger meets or exceeds draft guidance for a new voluntary BSI Group accessibility standard, which has just
entered the public consultation phase and is due to be published later this year. Consultancy Urban Foresight worked closely with Duku on the eight-month charger project, part-funded by Innovate UK, and project manager Clare Pennington said: “With the potential for hundreds, possibly thousands of chargepoints to be installed before the guidance is published, it’s really important for organisations to be proactive and consider what they can do now to ensure their chargepoints are accessible.”
also tried BMW’s new V8 (again, specs unconfirmed), which sounded great and pulled hard. But it feels as if the age of BMW’S 7 Series luxury limousine is the electrification now better suits a luxury German brand’s flagship, so every car’s brief than a combustion engine. successive generation points towards the The i7’s extra mass made it slightly more technology we might see on the smaller comfortable (but slightly less agile) on the 5 and 3 Series models. And the same is true move. Ride comfort from the fresh chassis, of this latest seventh-generation 7 Series, which has new adaptive air suspension and which we’ve tried in prototype form. active anti-roll control, is brilliant. It offers We tested an i7, which will come in three the kind of float on undulating roads you editions. Our ‘middle’ model (no specs are expect from a luxury limousine, with even available yet) should offer more than 400 our pre-production car’s yet-to-be-finalised miles of claimed range and felt smooth and calibration and suspension components swift; you’d never need more performance filtering out noise and vibration. in a luxury car – and the refinement here Select Sport mode and the dampers really suits the car’s brief and character. We tense up ever so slightly, which results in
slightly more tightly controlled body movement transmitting a little more vibration through to the cabin on the i7’s 20-inch wheels. But it also brings a boost in agility during quick direction changes. Not that many people will drive or be driven in an i7 in this way, but the handling capability is there, and BMW still sees this as a “core competence”. Steering and stability are good (and helped by rear-axle steering) while the i7 is clearly packed full of technology. This includes a clever new remote-parking feature that will all be unveiled, along with full details of 7 Series and i7 specifications and prices, on 20 April. Customer deliveries of the flagship model will start in November.
DRIVING this early i7 proves that the age of electrification has overtaken combustion engines in luxury cars. The new 7 Series is also loaded with technology and the signs are positive.
Fresh 7 Series shaping up nicely SeanCarson
sean_carson@autovia.co.uk
18 6April2022
Verdict
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