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This startup we encountered during our visit to the IAA Munich auto show is helping to make both parking and electric vehicle charging available in the tight confines of Europe’s urban centers, by stacking 16 cars in a space measuring just over 525 square feet. Think of those Carvana vertical car display/“vending machines” but your car’s not on display and there’s the added twist of providing a level-2 EV charger on each parking pad. Two VePa parking/charging sites are open in the Munich area, one is under construction in Berlin, and seven more are in the planning phase.
How It Works
Wheel up to the garage door and register to park or charge, enter your car’s license plate number and provide payment method. The garage door opens, you pull into the open space, you and your passengers exit the vehicle, plug your vehicle in if charging (and because this is Europe, you use the level-2 charging cable that came with your car—chargers here don’t typically include this high-value-copper theft target). Once your party has exited the structure, the mechanism lifts your car up and aligns the next available open platform with the garage door. Then when you return, simply enter your license number, and your car rotates back onto the ground floor. Climb in, and drive straight out of a garage door opposite the one you entered.
How Big and Heavy Can the Cars Be?
The Munich VePa facilities are limited to 16 feet, 5 inches long by 7 feet, 8 inches wide and a weight of just 5,950 pounds. This rules out the largest European SUVs, although the Berlin facility is upsized to fit a 17-foot, 7-inch-long vehicle weighing up to 6,170 pounds. That should accommodate the biggest local Audi Q7s and BMW X7s (although we wonder if electrified versions of these behemoths will overload it).
Who Is Using VePa?
All locations are open to the public, although private, leased usage is also possible. (A real estate developer is a major investor, because this system is viewed as much easier and cheaper to implement than underground parking garages for small apartment complexes.) Today, the typical user is someone venturing into town for lunch or a meeting who needs parking and/or a charge. Apartment dwellers might park once a week overnight to charge up. And the facility we visited also has a parking tenant in the subscription car-sharing/rental business. VePa obviously offers a convenient, secure way to house cars awaiting rental, and an easy way for renters to pick up and drop off the cars. To date the usage has been about 60 percent parking, 40 percent charging.
Price and Penalties for Overstaying a Charge?
The listed parking fee was €1 for 15 minutes ($4.69/hour) from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., then an overnight charge kicks in at €10 ($11.72). There is ostensibly no penalty for staying hooked up after your car’s done charging, although we’re told paying for the electricity while charging typically costs less than parking, so technically the rate does go up after the charging stops. VePa has rivals in the automated parking tower biz, many of which also offer EV charging. But the VePa design is quick to assemble (6 months), easily disassembled, the cost to build per parking space is less than many, and each tower is said to save more than 2,100 tons of CO2 per year.
