Spark converts phoneboxes to electric vehicle chargers

Spark has converted five phone boxes around Auckland into free electric vehicle chargers, immediately trumping the four offered by Vector.

It's fair to say the company's main goal today is good pre-earnings PR as much as transforming our vehicular habits.

Still, it's a nifty idea, and it shows we don't have to wait for locations like petrol stations to get with the EV programme.

And it also nicely complements Vector's quartet of chargers, which are dotted around the inner city. Spark's are distributed around the outskirts (see list below). With today's pure electric vehicles sporting 100km to 160km ranges for the most part, the well-organised EV driver should be able to tootle north or south.

Charging time is not quick. A Spark spokesman says, "These aren’t fast chargers so they won’t fully charge a battery in 30-odd minutes (those require serious power supplies that we can’t yet get into the areas we want to have the plugs and attaching them to phone boxes is another problem), but they will give you about other 20km from a 30 minute charge, depending on your vehicle. We’re seeing them as a top-up system at the moment."

This isn't the first time Spark has repurposed its phone boxes. Around 1000 of its total 3500 of them now do double duty as wi-fi spots.

Like the phone box wi-fi network, the "Spark Plugs" project comes from Spark Ventures, the same division that brought us Lightbox, Qrious and Morepork.

Spark will deliver its half-year result tomorrow. With chief executive Simon Moutter among telco bosses at a recent industry conference who noted it's hard to get a good return on high capital spending in the traditional telco market, one point of interest for investors will be whether any of Spark Ventures' various experiments is positioned for a serious payoff any time soon.

RAW DATA: Spark release

Five phone boxes near Auckland are part of the Spark Plugs pilot, with three already converted and operational at:

• Waiwera Rd, by the Waiwera Thermal Resort
• Waitakaruru Country Store car park, Waitakaruru, State Highway 25
• Prescotts Garages, Kopu-Hikuai Road, Hikuai, State Highway 25A

Two more will be coming online shortly:

• Waipu Pharmacy, The Centre, Waipu
• Wellsford – either at the Memorial Park or at another site on SH1, depending on consents.

They will also be listed on Plugshare – a crowdsourcing app that plots charging stations all over the world. The pilot will run through to the end of April 2016, and if it’s successful, Spark will look at expanding the network, provided the necessary permissions and consents are obtained.

More information about how to use SparkPlugs is available at www.spark.co.nz/plug

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