I'm gonna buy the diesel v12 version to guarantee I'm paying maximum $ per brew. I want to make sure big oil has enough money to feed their families this week.
People regularly fuck up plenty of ruggedised things manufactured by Rheinmetall all the time. They're clever, not magic, and a kerb is a challenging place for a socket to be.
Just because a design is good doesn’t make what he said wrong. He was correct in everything he said lmao, he never said it would break the outlet or that it wouldn’t work long term.
Dogs will inevitably piss on that thing.
Once that happens, what? You'd still touch it?
This is not a matter of "being more knowledgeable than an entire company", this is basic logic.
Put something on the ground, and it'll quickly be covered in filth.
What dogs? There are basically no free roaming dogs in germany. And there are much much fewer people here who would go out of their way while walking their dog to make them purposefully pee on this thing to give others a bad time. These sort of "pranksters" seem to be more common in the US from what I saw. Here in germany most people (of course not everyone but generally most people) treat public property well. Long story short just to say, I very highly doubt a dog is going to pee on this.
On a busy street in the middle of dusseldorf? No I really don't think so. Even if just for the reason that there are other people around who would tell them what a disgusting freak they are for doing that.
The system does not require touching. Once the charger is unlocked, the flap over the charging socket can be opened using the customer’s plug (a brief instruction guide is available on the curb charger).
everytime i say this a horde of people tell me they cant be filled with dirt. but i know dirtbag teenagers who will stomp little stones into the receptacle or pry it open or whatever. these units need to be quick changeable so they can be maintained offsite and quickly replaced. im also convinced they WILL get dirt in them or damaged. just need someone run near it with muddy shoes and rain washes it in while someone is charging. after a few times its borked and you cant get the plug in anymore cause of the dirt
Is that observation unique to this charger? It applies to gas pumps, parking meters, vending machines, elevators, doorbells, locks, virtually any public facing device. Thank you Captain Obvious.
There are always windowlickers who come at every invention made for infrastructure with the "Lol Teenagers will fuck this up so bad". Whilst completely ignoring that they in fact did not fuck up other similar things. And that vandalism is not as common as you think when you spend all day on reddit seeing videos of what I would describe as the extremes of society..
All these things could be solved with a large blast of air to clear debris.
I worked for a company that wanted to have some sort of cameras in a robotic weld cell the cameras were supposed to encased in a tube with a flap that would open when needed. When it was open a constant flow of air was blasted out of the tube to prevent sparks or other things from damaging the camera.
The company closed down before this technology was implemented so I don't know how effective it would be in real life scenarios.
Encapsulated electronic components (IP68) and a sealed charging socket with integrated water drains ensure reliable charging, even in wet conditions. If water accumulates on the street and could compromise safe charging, a water level sensor interrupts the process before the residual current device (RCD) is triggered.
And because no one ever thought about this before they did not actually plan for it and didn't test it either...
Oh, wait. They actually did so for a year in cologne proving that those things show less issues under real world conditions than regular charging points.
Nice joke OP but there’s no way that’s an EV Charger. EV Dodge Chargers are like 5.2 meters long and 2 meters wide. How can they fit 2,600 kg of car in that curb?
There are plenty of things that engineers made that do not make sense for a practical application, especially when it comes to cars and car adjacent products
Okay, but why do people dont look for information for one minute before assuming the worst? Some people in this thread would react to the first smartphone like "what if it falls down, what if it rains, what if the battery runs out, what if there is sun out, what if i have to wear gloves, what about the blind people, what about the people with no hands, this is completly unusable and not worth pursuing" smh...
God fucking damn it this stuff makes me so upset! You can SEE THE DIRT COVER IN THE PICTURE. Outdoor plugs are not a new engineering problem that's at the cutting edge of being solved!
Serious question: how does it fare with snow? I can imagine this may not work well for colder regions of Europe like Sweden, Finland, Norway, Switzerland, Austria, etc..
Germany is located further north than Switzerland and Austria so the temperature difference isn’t that huge. Furthermore, they also can get snow in the cities.
They stress-tested these things in real-world city streets for an entire year before launching them in Düsseldorf, and they maintained a 99%+ uptime despite weather, road grime, and local dogs.
They have tested them for years with good results. You can open the charging hatch without touching it with your hands. The same for paying by contactless.
Don’t know how many dogs would pee on it as it’s intergraded into the sidewalk. Dogs usually prefer something that is higher like a pole, tree or even a car.
Encapsulated electronic components (IP68) and a sealed charging socket with integrated water drains ensure reliable charging, even in wet conditions. If water accumulates on the street and could compromise safe charging, a water level sensor interrupts the process before the residual current device (RCD) is triggered.
Directly from the manufacturer’s website in the post…
This thread is like a gathering of people who are the reason they need to put "Do not eat" on washer pods. Like jesus christ people, a little critical thinking wouldn't go amiss.
That is correct, but that doesn't really hinder waterproofing at all.
Thing about it this way: Take almost any flagship smartphone in 2026, they all got some level of waterproofing and still have a usb-c port which obviously is used to transfer data and charge the device.
Its totally possible to construct devices that can be submerged for hours and still have a working wired data connection.
Yes and no. I am an electrician working for a renewable company and I/we are so swamped installing EV chargers here in California. I’ve been at it for 2 years, and am starting to get exhausted. We have so much work still left to do. Lol
On the flap ist a pictogram-instruction. The Typ2 charger (the cable) has a little knob, which ich usually used for locking the cable in the charger. That knob can bei used to open the flap. So no touching of anything but your own cable necessary.
You open the lid with the edge of your plug, you do not touch it at all. People in this thread seem to think that touchscreens on public chargers are perfecly clean...
Then open your eyes. Are you tripping over every stone every day? I hate when everything has to be idiot-proof… that’s why we have bureaucracy in Germany/EU
I don’t think people will be walking on the curb or in front of cars instead of the sidewalk, but on the other hand someone could fuck up by having a long cable that extends on the sidewalk, maybe a blind person trips over it
That's a good point, though. I guess also that car is particularly not too close, so in a normal situation that car will be a bit closer so there is no reason for people to walk over or around it.
And yes, we are people and we are unpredictable, so there will be situations where a long cable will be used, will get moved to the left, and an old lady will trip because that's what we do when we are old.
Yup, with no marking or highlights, people are definitely gonna be tripping over it.
People in this thread behaving like Rheinmetal is some kind of philanthropic organisation. They are a company and if they saw a profit, they put it there. They don't care if people trip over it. That's for the government to check and regulate. I personally would not have a random wire on a footpath.
There are slower AC and faster DC chargers. For AC you usually plug in you own cable, DC chargers have their own cables that are thicker and also often water cooled.
What about if the rain can’t drain fast enough and the street floods? Not trying to be a Luddite here. I genuinely want to know how they protected against minor street flooding
"Encapsulated electronic components (IP68) and a sealed charging socket with integrated water drains ensure reliable charging, even in wet conditions. If water accumulates on the street and could compromise safe charging, a water level sensor interrupts the process before the residual current device (RCD) is triggered."
It withstands even submersion. The electronics are rated with IP68 which is the highest standard for "ingress protection" the first digit is for dust proofing the second is for water proofing. 6 and 8 are the highest possible ratings respectively.
It is designed to withstand submersion in water more than 1 meter deep for an extended period of time. The extended period of time bit is a bit annoying because the official standard doesn't give a precise value but it is atleast 1.5 hours but often much longer.
So it is actually flood proof at least for minor flooding.
Answering the how i can not really do in detail to be honest, but imagine a lot of gaskets and seals and water tight glues that are used to close any openings.
The whole IP rating was designed to give better answers tp vague terms like waterproof. For example almost all new smartphones are somewaht waterproof, but this ranges from doesn't get damaged in the rain or can be cleaned under the sink to being able to work as an underwater camera...the IP Rating is how you can tell it appart.
Little side note:
it also has an rating for physical impact so it is engineered to survive cars driving over it.
You pay by app, charging pass or credit card. That is also where the authentication happens. I don't know it curb outlets have the card payment stuff in them or if they are app only, because it would be a little inconvenient to use, but that's that.
The only communication happening between the car and the "not a charger"* is a go-ahead signal and how much current it may draw.
*) when AC-Charging, the actual charger used is the one built into the car. These "chargers" on the road are actually just a smart outlet with some metering and billing stuff stuck to it. This keeps them simple and cheap. If you charge DC, the charger actually is a charger and feeds directly into the car's BMS.
I worked there on & off for a couple of years. Wonderful place, really innovative transport system, cheap as chips & is reliable 24/7. Nice people too.
You can do this with CCS2, the European version of CCS (also called the Mennekes connector). It also has an electronic lock. You cannot do this with North American CCS1, but you could with NACS.
I’d wager the concern is more so about the outlets being covered in snow. Traditionally, that curb space is probably where a pile of snow is going to sit from plowing the parking spaces and sidewalk.
So unless they just remove all snow all the time, the outlet might get lost in the snow.
Yeah, any place that gets decent snow in the winter is going to have issues with curb integrated plugs.
And if these things are heated, well, that's great for the outlet, but that snow isn't going to evaporate, so there's going to be ice building up around it
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u/ehalepagneaux 5h ago
That's really cool, here in the US we're about to switch to gas powered coffee makers.