Horse blankets, hay bales and pizza cartons become road signs for e-vehicle charging points

As electric vehicles take off across the world, there's a growing issue with infrastructure—countries suffer not just from a lack of charging stations, but a lack of signage informing drivers where they are.

In Sweden, for example, there are more than 8000 charging points, but only about 20 official signs leading people to them. We've already seen McDonald's Sweden try to address this by turning its Golden Arches into signposts and now another campaign, from the country's largest charging operator Bee Charging Solutions, also seeks to highlight the problem in a more playful way.

Agency Forsman & Bodenfors created roadside signage on hay bales, horse blankets, flags, napkins, pizza cartons and toilet paper, with additional messaging shaved onto the back of an ice-cream vendor's head and on a biker's vest. There are even kids jumping on a trampoline with signs on their sweatshirts, and someone inflating a floatie with a sign in a bus shelter.

While some of the signs are obviously stunts for the campaign film, some will be more permanent, the agency says. For example the hay bales will be there for several months. The point is to start a conversation around the lack of infrastructure. 

"There are thousands of signs pointing towards gas stations, but only about twenty official signs showing the nearest charging station," Nathalie Kinell, CMO at Bee Charging Solutions, explains. "Unfortunately that creates a feeling that the charging infrastructure just isn’t there. With these unusual and playful signs we want to show people how close it actually is to the nearest station. And at the same time create a conversation about why there aren’t more signs already, and what both the industry and the governmental organizations need to do to speed up the transformation towards electrified transports.”