Not just armor… Together with TankE GmbH and the city of Cologne, the Rheinmetall Group has launched a pilot project to test loading curbs in public traffic areas. The aim of the project is to integrate and pilot the loading kerbs developed by Rheinmetall in urban areas. The aim is to validate the acceptance as well as the urban planning and design advantages. Following the signing of a corresponding declaration of intent in May 2023, the official go-ahead for the roll-out on site was given in April. The loading kerbs will initially be extensively tested in real-life operation at two locations in the city.
Climate change and climate protection, mobility, population growth, economic change and digitalization will present the city of Cologne, Germany’s fourth-largest city, with a wide range of challenges in the coming years as a growing metropolis. The city wants to actively shape this process and develop forward-looking concepts to overcome them at an early stage. The charging infrastructure plays a key role in the mobility transition through electromobility. The German government’s ambitious target of 15 million electric cars by 2030 can only be achieved with a corresponding expansion in proportion to the expansion of the electric vehicle fleet, as significantly more people will switch to electric cars in the future, even without their own parking and charging facilities. The demand for public charging infrastructure is estimated at around one million charging points in Germany by 2030.
The intelligent use of existing urban infrastructure with high charging performance makes the Rheinmetall charging curb a space-saving alternative to a charging station. This solves the problem of the lack of availability of space in urban areas for the fast, flexibly scalable and cost-effective installation of freely accessible public charging points. This unique selling point was decisive for the city and the network operator to award the contract.
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