- A residential parking garage in California automatically parks and charges EVs.
- The automated parking system uses a robotic arm to plug in a Level 2 charging cable.
- When the car finishes charging, the robotic arm unplugs the cable, and the EV is moved to another parking spot automatically.
About a decade ago, Tesla promised a robotic arm that would automatically plug in an EV for overnight charging. That never happened, but other companies have risen to the challenge and are now offering fully featured products.
To be clear, plugging in an EV takes less than a minute, and it’s not exactly rocket science. However, there is one scenario where manually plugging in your EV can be impossible: an automated parking garage. Here, a robotic arm that plugs in makes a lot of sense, and that’s why a new residential parking garage in California went down this route.
Menlo Park’s Lume apartment complex opened in late 2024, but its fully automated garage with robotic EV charging arm was completed last year. The building project is located in a FEMA flood zone, which means developers were prohibited from building below-grade parking. What’s more, a zoning height restriction limited the area available for parking. The solution was to build a high-density three-level automated parking system that offers over 450 spaces–a first for an apartment community in the United States, according to Greystar, the real estate company that runs the complex.
Drivers leave their cars at the garage entrance, and the system takes care of the rest, ferrying the vehicles to the first available spot. Through a smartphone app, EV drivers can request a charging session, and if a spot is open, the vehicle is automatically transferred to a charging bay, where a robotic arm plugs in a Level 2 cable. When the charging reaches the desired level, the car is unplugged and moved to another spot, leaving the charging bay open for another EV that might need a top-up.
Lume Menlo Park’s automated parking system was developed by Switzerland’s Sofetin and installed by California-based Parkworks. Meanwhile, Heller Manus Architects designed the housing project, while the parking garage project is the brainchild of Watry Design. The two residential buildings have a total of 441 multi-family units and include amenities such as co-working spaces, a pool and a yoga studio. That said, it’s worth noting that this is Silicon Valley we’re talking about, so it all comes at a cost, with the cheapest monthly lease I could find starting from around $3,300.
