Dubai: The network of electric car charging points keep growing in the UAE, so much so developers cannot think of new projects without placing a few there.
“In fact, the first two buyers at The Residences project in JLT (Jumeirah Lakes Towers) had that as a precondition in the negotiation process,” said Raju Shroff of Signature Developers. “We will one at each of the four basements when the tower is ready and we will double that next year. Expectations are changing and developers have to come up with whatever is trending.”
Other developments, such as the Sustainable City in Dubailand, have a sizeable installed base of charging points.
According to Samer Choucair of CE-Creates, there is no such thing as having enough of them. The company has a stake in ION, which currently operates the electric vehicle fleet operating for Careem.
“The majority of the charging of these vehicles happen at public stations — the regular charging is about four hours plus,” said Choucair.
“Even with an electric car fleet, we had a tough time learning how to manage it. We had to consider charging cycles, the distances and, most important, have to pre-empt what the battery range would likely be before every trip.
“The risk is we don’t want to drop any order coming through Careem; but we don’t want to take on the bigger risk if the available car’s battery range doesn’t allow a trip to Abu Dhabi and back. What we do is reassign cars according to how much battery charge they have. Plus, each time the driver shift changes, we try and have cars charging at the lowest peak time.”
And what will Choucair like to see more of? The super-charging points that can do the job in about two hours. But there are only a handful in existence now.
