L-Charge’s 1st Mobile EV Charger Starts Patrolling Moscow’s Streets

Russian engineering firm L-Charge has announced that its first mobile EV charger has started to patrol Moscow city streets to provide on-demand charging service to electric vehicles. It can be summoned via an app to any location in Moscow and takes just 8 minutes to charge an electric car to a range of 100 km, a world record, said the company.

L-Charge also plans to build 4-5 EV charging units to launch them as a mobile charger in Paris, Berlin, New York, Amsterdam and London.

All mobile electric car chargers available in the market today operate on power bank principle and themselves need to be recharged, stated the company. What makes the Russian invention fundamentally different is that it is a mobile mini power station which itself generates energy, stores it and enables other vehicles to recharge without needing to be connected to the grid, said L-Charge. The energy is generated from liquefied natural gas, but the option to switch to hydrogen is already in place.

The company offered this solution – a super fast mobile EV charger – at a product launch in Moscow.

“Around 90% of atmospheric pollution in Moscow is caused by vehicles, and Moscow is a leader in the development of public transport. To significantly reduce hazardous emissions, private and commercial vehicles must be switched to electricity. Natural
gas is the cleanest source of renewable energy available today, and in the case of our charger, generation of energy is even 5-7% cleaner than in gas thermal power stations – in other words, it is cleaner than charging a vehicle from the grid or a socket.As a result, we can cut the level of pollution from vehicles by at least one third right now,” said Dmitry Lashin, CEO of L-Charge.

Lashin noted that given the way electric vehicles are developing today, it is simpler to address the issue of moving the chargers than to create a large number of stationary chargers across the city.

“We could continue developing the network of charging networks connected to the grid, spending a huge amount of resources, both time and money. But the problem of inadequate infrastructure can be resolved straight away by deploying a network of
autonomous charging stations,” he added.

Moscow has already implemented a list of measures aimed at supporting EV development, making parking for EV’s free of charge, as well as providing free charging at public chargers. A spokesman for the Moscow Department of Transport reportedly said that Moscow is ready to support developers’ initiatives through the allocation of grants.

Together Moscow transport authorities and local business are planning to help car owners to shift to EVs in the upcoming years.