Keeping up with Climate Tech vol. 6

In a world racing to electrify transportation, one startup is taking a refreshingly grounded approach…by looking up. Specifically, at lampposts.

Voltpost, co-founded by Luke Mairo, Jeff Prosserman, and Jörn Vicari, is retrofitting existing lamp posts into electric vehicle (EV) charging stations. 

“I started my career in banking at Barclays Bank, covered a range of industries, including the industrial companies and the autos, the energy sector — which was mostly oil and gas — and tech at different points,” Mairo told the Harvard Technology Review. “I loved all of them, and really was drawn towards the energy sector as one that’s incredibly important to society, but also very interesting from a business perspective.”

Mairo’s interest in climate and innovation led him to Columbia University’s Climate School, where he pursued a master’s in sustainability management—“kind of like a green MBA program,” he said. 

It was there that he co-led an entrepreneurship group with his classmate and future co-founder Jeff Prosserman, who had written a research paper on lamppost EV charging.

“Jeff wrote a research paper for a class focused on lamppost charging in cities,” Mairo said. “We put our heads together with a third co-founder [Jörn Vicari], who he worked with at Samsung, and built a business case, a product mockup around a lamppost charging solution for cities like New York City, where we were based at the time.”

That concept quickly turned into a real opportunity when they pitched their idea to the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT), which had just completed its first pilots of curbside charging.

“We started raising funds, we started building a team and prototype, and then a year after we started, we got a pilot on the road with the DOT,” Mairo said. “They told us to build it and said they saw a lot of benefits to the solution.”

Though Europe, especially London, had already proven the viability of lamppost EV charging at scale, Voltpost saw an opportunity to build something tailored to the infrastructure and regulations of the U.S. market. 

How It Works

Voltpost avoids the construction-heavy process typical of EV charger deployment. Instead, it retrofits existing city lampposts, significantly reducing cost, time, and disruption.

“The benefit of retrofitting lampposts is that we avoid the construction entrenched process, which allows us to be a fraction of the cost, the timing, and the footprint,” Mairo explained.

The three-step process begins with running power through existing conduit—a method used in LED upgrades. Next comes encasing the pole with a collar that fits different sizes, followed by installing Voltpost’s technology.

“The actual installation of the charger itself can take an hour,” Mairo said. “So it’s a very quick process for us to retrofit.”

Lessons from the Field

Voltpost’s pilots have taken place in New York, Detroit, and Connecticut, among other areas. From each pilot, the company learned both technical and operational lessons.

“Our first project with the New York City DOT… gave us data about our products working well, but it also gave us technical considerations to evolve our product.”

Their recently-announced pilot in Connecticut, in partnership with Eversource and UI, involves the deployment of 40 to 60 dual-port charging stations. 

Another of Voltpost’s partners is AT&T, which has worked with the startup to integrate Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity into EV charging stations across Michigan and the Metro-Detroit area.

“AT&T has been a great partner to evolve our products,” Mairo said. “Since we’ve announced that partnership, it’s opened folks’ eyes to the value proposition of a platform that can provide different services.”

Those services could include providing hotspots or supporting connected vehicles during software updates—on top of charging.

Voltpost has an extensive pipeline of upcoming deployments, with plans to install chargers in the coming months at several sites across Michigan, New York, and Illinois. These efforts align with AT&T’s goal to help business customers reduce 1 billion metric tons of CO₂ by 2035 through connectivity-backed solutions such as fiber, 5G, and IoT.

User Experience First

As EV adoption increases, so too do expectations around usability, access, and integration with everyday routines. Voltpost is meeting that challenge by making user experience a key pillar.

“Especially given how quickly the space is moving, we want seamless user experience to be central,” Mairo said.

Recognizing that not every driver wants to download a new app for every charger they use, Voltpost built in flexibility from the start. Drivers can interact with a Voltpost charger through the company’s dedicated mobile app or a mobile web app.

“We have a mobile app that the user can download that has a range of different features,” Mairo said. “We also allow for the user to go through a web app, so that they don’t have to download the app.”

This frictionless entry point is particularly important in dense urban settings where drivers may be trying a new charger for the first time or simply need a quick top-up without any hassle. Voltpost’s interface is built to accommodate frequent users and casual or one-time users.

“Something that’s come up pretty frequently in our space is that flexibility from the customer side — to be able to access all the different chargers as there are different options in the market — is very important,” Mairo said. “And we as a public charging company definitely want to support that level of access.”

That ethos extends to visibility as well. Voltpost is working to ensure its charging locations are easily discoverable across various maps platforms, where users typically search for amenities on the go.

Together, these decisions reflect a broader commitment to accessibility—making it easier for users to find, activate, and rely on Voltpost chargers in the same way they expect from any public utility. In a fragmented and fast-growing charging landscape, Voltpost is betting that ease of use and consistency will be as critical as hardware innovation.

Regulatory Realities

Mairo and his team found that their public sector and utility partners are “experienced and conservative—for good reason.” They want to ensure that prior to investing, they are sure of a solution’s reliability and safety and the good for the end user.

To succeed in such an environment, Voltpost has found that the best way to approach stakeholders is as long-term partners rather than short-term customers.

“We’ve become more of a thought leader in being able to educate how we’ve been able to enable projects in different markets,” said Mairo. “As we grow as an organization, that’s going to be a major component of how we ‘do business.’”

That collaborative approach has paid off. Two major utilities, Exelon and RW, have invested in Voltpost. 

With Exelon, “we’re working with them as a partner at this point to become a good vendor to their territories, but also work through a lot of the challenges on the utility side to deploying electric charging infrastructure,” Mairo said.

Looking Ahead

“We want charging to become ubiquitous,” Mairo said. “So that, similar to your cell phone, you always know there’s somewhere to plug it in.”

With a growing list of pilot projects, utility partnerships, and a flexible, fast-install solution, Voltpost is working to make that vision a reality—one lamppost at a time.