I saw an article earlier this week published by Penn State and brought my way via RSS and Hacker news.
The story details a trial of using light poles to host electric chargers. This is being framed as a win-win for both the municipality as well as the EV driver whom may not have access to a secure or dedicated garage like apartment dwellers or visitors to charge and shop while they wait in retail areas. Stay tuned for my thoughts on that. I'm going to write out my thoughts about the housing crisis at a later date. I largely agree with their argument. This would be a boon for everyone involved. As someone who doe not yet drive an EV, I am eagerly watching the space, especially the conversion space as I would love to repalce the combustion engine in my Element with an electric drive train. I know it's possible as Jerry and Zac did it with their jeep. Conversions are possible. They aren't cheap.
Anyway. Where I live we get snow a chunk of the year. Electric chargers on poles in our downtown would need to be mounted high enough to not get buried in the snow banks in the winter. I also wonder how the charge cables would be secured against bored people who have poor impulse control (like myself) from messing with them. Look no further than the air hose at every gas station. As far as I can tell, air hoses are less delicate than electric charge cables.