Curbside charging

SUVs parked in a Manhattan curb lane among high-rise towers, each over a glowing inductive charging plate linked to a curbside cabinet — Concept render: a curb lane of charging plates, highlighted, all fed from one cabinet. Park over the plate and the car charges. No cable, no post in the way.

Close-up of a glowing teal inductive charging plate set flush into a street parking bay, with a parked vehicle's tire just above it and high-rise towers behind — Up close: the plate sits flush with the asphalt, so plows, bikes and feet roll right over it. The car's receiver lines up above the coil, and nothing sticks up from the road.

Basement garage under an apartment building with a row of cars, utility SUVs and a small minibus, each parked over a glowing teal inductive charging plate — In the basement: every bay under the building gets a plate. Residents park and charge overnight, with no cables across the floor.

Aerial dusk view of a shared parking lot in a New York apartment complex, a grid of glowing teal charging plates under cars, SUVs and minibuses — The shared lot: one grid of plates serves a whole apartment complex, from small cars and SUVs to the shuttle minibuses.

Charge where you park

Park. Charge. Go to bed.

Most New Yorkers who own a car park it on the street. There is no garage to plug into, and a cable across the sidewalk is a lawsuit waiting to happen. So put the charger under the car instead: a plate in the curb lane, a receiver on the car, and software that shares one street feeder across the whole block overnight.

The idea is a little goofy. The numbers are not.

How it works

Four parts, no cables

01
A plate in the curb lane
A charging pad sits flush in the parking lane, in a marked slot with a wheel guide. Snowplows roll over it; nobody trips on a cable because there is no cable.
02
A receiver under the car
A bolt-on receiver feeds the car's own charge port, so the car thinks it is plugged in. No battery surgery. One kit per car model.
03
Software shares the block
Every plate on the block draws from one street feeder. The software splits that power across every parked car overnight, so everyone wakes up charged instead of the first five.
04
Pay per kWh, not per hour
You pay for the energy you took, billed like a utility. The slot is for parking and charging, so nobody camps on it with a full battery.

One block, one night

Does everyone wake up charged?

The limit on a city block is not the plates. It is the power line feeding them. Compare the dumb way (first cars in get full power, everyone else waits) with load sharing (everyone gets a fair slice).

Curb spaces on the block40

Cars with a receiver fitted25%

Street feeder for the block60 kW

Hours parked overnight10 h

Miles each driver needs tomorrow20 mi

Plate power (SAE J2954)

EVs on the block10Each needs ~5.7 kWh

Grid draw tonight600 kWhBefore plate losses

First come, first served7 of 10Only the cars that fit on the feeder at full power

With load sharing10 of 10~193 miles added per car

Everyone on the block wakes up with enough for tomorrow, on the same street feeder. That is the whole trick: software, not a bigger cable.

Illustrative: 3.5 miles per kWh, 92% plate efficiency when parked well. Real feeder capacity comes from Con Edison, block by block.

Park like you mean it

How far off can you park?

Inductive charging only works when the pad under the car sits over the plate in the street. The standard allows roughly 10 cm either way. Slide the car and see what happens.

Parking offset4 cm

Nailed it~93% efficientFull power. Park like this every night.

This is why the slot design matters as much as the plate: wheel guides and a painted box do most of the work. Illustrative figures.

Charging at a red light

Make the wait at the light pay you back

Put a plate in the lane just behind the stop line. When the light turns red, the car above it charges; when it turns green, the plate switches off. This is real: it is called stationary or quasi-dynamic wireless charging, and road pilots have run it for buses. The question is how much a red light is actually worth.

Red light length45 s

Red lights caught per day30

Plate power11 kWIn-lane plate

Per red light0.44 mi0.13 kWh

Per day13.3 mi3.8 kWh

Of a day's driving66%

Worth buildingA real share of the day, topped up while waiting at lights it stops at anyway.

The honest read: for a private car a red light gives well under a mile, so it is a bonus. For buses and taxis that stop at the same busy lights all day, it adds up, which is why the first red-light plates belong on bus lanes and taxi routes. Plates only switch on when a paired receiver is detected above them. Illustrative figures.

The honest part

What stands in the way

Almost no cars have receivers

That is why the retrofit kit comes first, starting with fleets you control, one car model at a time.

Plates cost more than plugs

Several times a curbside wired charger today. Build every curb rebuild plate-ready (conduit and a recessed bay) so the plate drops in later.

Winter, salt and plows

The plate must sit flush, drain water and survive snowplows and road salt. Proven on test roads, not yet on NYC streets.

The street belongs to the city

NYC DOT controls the curb and Con Edison controls the feeder. Curbside wired charging pilots already exist, which is the door to knock on.

Featured · Where the power comes from

The Urban Energy Loop

A plate is only as clean as the grid behind it. The Energy Loop is the whole circuit for a Brooklyn district: local waste becomes electricity, a resilient DC microgrid carries it, the curb plates deliver it with no cable, and the stack carbon gets captured along the way. It's a live simulation you can run: throttle the plant, island a node, or trip a safety cutoff and watch it spread.

01Waste to powerPower Island plant
02DC microgridIslands when the grid fails
03Curb platesThis page
04Carbon captureStack CO2 held back

Run the Energy Loop

Same system · Who pays for it

Power Up New YorkThe same energy loop seen from the negotiating table: city, utility, residents and investors each decide how the plant, the microgrid and the curb plates get funded.

Layers of seriousness

The same ladder, everywhere

Curb charging, astronaut training and the harbour assets all climb the same four rungs. Nothing skips a rung, and anything touching people, power or the water goes through licensed partners and the agencies.

Rung	Curb charging	Astronaut training	Harbour assets
1 · Paper	This dashboard: the numbers for one block, one feeder, one night.	The free online cadet tier and the classroom, running today.	The Harbour Asset instrument: flood defence and launch pad on one hull.
2 · Demonstrator	One plate, one retrofitted car, one private slot. Low voltage on the bench first.	Simulators and ground drills run by licensed training partners.	A scale model barge and a tank test with a naval architect.
3 · Pilot	One NYC block with DOT and Con Edison, plus a fleet you control.	A founding cohort on site, under partner certificates and insurance.	One barrier section and one berth, with USCG and USACE on board.
4 · City scale	Every new curb rebuild is plate-ready by default.	A standing training campus that funds the rest.	A harbour line that defends the city and hosts launches.

The Thistle retrofitThe car the receiver goes on Astronaut trainingRung 1 is live today The Harbour AssetFlood defence and launch pad