221 - The Apps Episode

Gary C:

Hi, I'm Gary and this is episode 221 of EV Musings, a podcast about renewables, electric vehicles and things that are interesting to electric vehicle owners. On the show today, we'll be looking at the apps you have for running an electric car.

Gary C:

Before we start, I wanted to welcome you all back to season 12 of the podcast. This will be episodes 221 to 240. Over the course of this season, I'm looking to talk about EV fires, EV insurance, tires, pain -free charge, short -term EV rental and several other topics that will be interesting to those of you who are looking to get educated about electric vehicles. I'm also hoping to be able to speak to someone from Smart Charge, who are the Sainsbury's charging offering and Apple Green who are in the Welcome Break motorway service areas. So stay tuned for that.

Gary C:

Our main topic of discussion today is apps, specifically those that you might need or not need to enable you to run your electric car. If you read social media and indeed some mainstream media when you EV drivers have attempted a long run, you'll invariably find a comment somewhere along the line of, well, I ended up having to download a lot of apps so I could charge on the different networks and each one needed a user profile, password and a payment method and it took ages to do that.

lic charge point regulations,: 2023

with a power output higher than eight kilowatts should be able to be initiated via a contactless payment card. So you don't need an app. But that's unfortunately not the case at the moment for many charges out there that are legacy units that came in before the regulations were created. And we'll come back to how you identify those a little later. So when we talk about EV apps, I think we need to be clear about what we're referring to. And I'm going to split this into three sorts.

of applications. There's those applications specific to your vehicle. There was applications specific to the charging infrastructure and those applications that are not specific to either the charging infrastructure or your car. So let's go through these one at a time. Apps specific to your car. Nowadays with the connected vehicle, just about every brand of car has an app that allows you to control your EV. Although

These aren't restricted to electric cars. My ID .3, for example, has a Volkswagen app that allows me to manage charging, remotely switch on the air conditioning, check the remaining range. Other examples of the BMW app, Tesla app, Kia, Hyundai. Not every brand of car has an app. Volvo and NG don't, for example, I believe. And many cars that are not electric also do have apps. So if I buy a petrol Volkswagen,

Gary C:

That was me shuddering. You'll also gain access to the same app, although obviously it won't allow you to do some of the things that the EV version will. Now, apps for vehicles are important for a number of reasons. Now, firstly, they allow you, as just mentioned, to control certain aspects of the vehicle. The Tesla app is a prime example of this. It gives you fairly detailed control over the car itself. It allows you to open and close doors, lock and unlock the car, summon the vehicle where fitted, check charge status, and any number of other things, and it's very useful as an EV driver. But the other thing apps allow you to do is to set up and manage plug and charge. Now we've touched on plug and charge a number of times over the years. It's a complicated topic, which Tesla have made look very easy. But behind the scenes, there are numerous various bits and pieces that need to speak to each other. And one of these is what's known as an MSP, a mobility service provider. In plain English, this is a contract with, amongst other things, a payment method attached to it. Companies like BMW, Kia, Mercedes and Audi have all created MSPs that are linked to a driver and a payment method. And this means that if that vehicle is enabled for plug and charge, the MSP attached to the user via the app will be the payment method for that session. Now, my ID3 app has a segment for plug and charge, which once I get my software updated to the most recent version, will allow me to plug and charge on whichever networks have enabled plug and charge for VW vehicles, which are Chexnotes, Ionity and possibly the Porsche charging network. But at least it's ready for when this changes. So for these reasons alone, having an app for your car is a useful thing to have. Plus on mine, VW have a tracker fitted so that if I park in a big car park, I can use the app to find where I left it.

Now that might sound silly, but I went to the Senex exhibition at the Millbrook Proving Ground last year and they use the banked oval of the proving ground as a car park. And it's quite easy to lose your car on a banked oval where everything looks the same. And there are very few landmarks to differentiate where you are around the circuit. I use the app to locate my car quite easily.

So moving on to the second type of app and that's those specific to the charging infrastructure.

Gary C:

the new public charging point: 2023

I saw a photo of an EG group charger recently. And on the front of the unit, it had four barcodes and three signs asking you to download the ChargePoint app to start a charge. You didn't need it because it also had a contactless card reader attached, which was all you really needed. So why do companies want you to download their app? Well, it's all about controlling you as a customer. If you use a contactless card to charge, then other than the details of your particular charging session, time started, time ended, amount charged, and cost, they have very little information about you as a customer.

But if you use their app, they have a lot more data with which they can track you. They know who you are, where you live, your contact details, your vehicle details, your payment details. They have a history of where you charge and which charges you use. They have a history of whether you like to charge long and slow or short and fast. They know whether you like to do a quick vault and bolt or run your vehicle down to almost empty, then sit on the charge until it's up to 100%.

Quick sidebar, don't sit on a charge until your car is at 100 % unless A, you have lots of time and don't mind waiting and B, there are other available charges for users to use if they want.

Now all this information is very useful to companies and to the data aggregators to whom they sell it. Now I've already seen charger units with large screens that are ideal for showing adverts while you charge.

Gary C:

Imagine if the adverts could be tailored to the sort of individual who's actually charging. They can do that using your individual data. What about Tesla running a commercial enticing you as a Polestar driver to come and swap to their brand? They could even offer discounts for existing Polestar drivers or vice versa. Now I know this all sounds a little Orwellian, but there are good reasons why a company would want your data. Receipts are an example.

At the moment, unlike petrol pumps, which usually have a printer on board, there is no standard way of getting receipts for the charges that you've done. If you're in business and need the receipts for claim and expenses, each charge point operator does it slightly differently. But what they all tend to have in common is that if you use an app to start and stop your charge, it logs the details and it can easily produce a receipt for you to download. And this isn't available on contactless easily at the moment.

I said a few moments ago that I do use some of these apps myself. So why am I telling you you don't need them if I also use them myself? Well, let me tell you one word convenience. Even though I charge at a plethora of different operators, I have the apps for a very small handful. And there are two reasons for this. The first one is that in bad weather, the apps are an ideal way to start the charge without having to stand out in the rain as the vast majority of charges currently don't have canopies.

Most ChargePoint operator apps allow you to identify the charger and both start and stop the charge from the app. So you pull up to the charger in the rain, jump out, quickly plug the cable in, jump back into the car and continue the charge initiation on the app. It saves you getting wait while you wait for the handshake to take place between the charger and the vehicle. Very convenient. Now the other reason I use them is because of pricing incentives.

There are a number of ChargePoint operators who will give you a discount on public charging if you use their app to initiate the charge. The GridServe app I mentioned earlier was launched with an automatic 20 % discount for any charge started via the app. BEEV has a permanent lower price for charging if you use the app instead of contactless and an even lower rate if you charge off peak. This can be the difference between paying 75p per kWh and 65p per kWh.

Gary C:

lic charge point regulations,: 2023

But there is a workaround. I was in France over the summer and I stopped at a couple of charging stops which had implemented the solution that's being proposed for the 7 kilowatt charges in the UK. It's not dissimilar to how you pay for parking in a car park. When you park at some car parks, you put your car in the bay, you walk over to a machine, you pay for your parking, often with a payment card, and then you head back to your car with a ticket.

Now imagine the same situation, but for charging. You pull into an AC charger, plug in your vehicle, then you walk to a payment unit located nearby, select the charger into which you're plugged, then swipe your contactless card. Now this works really well because it allows payment cards to be used without the need to add expensive card readers to every charger in the car park. One central payment reader controls multiple devices at the same time. But if you don't want to use your app, then how can you find the chargers which allow contactless payment? Simple. Use Zapmap. Go into the filters, move the sliders to 7kW and lower, select the payment section and highlight contactless payment. And this will immediately identify all the AC charges that can be accessed and paid for with a payment card.

Which brings us nicely onto the third type of EV app that you might want or need, which is an app that is not specific to either a car or to the charging infrastructure. And this encompasses those apps which are helpful to have

Gary C:

to facilitate your EV experience. Now you can absolutely survive without these apps, but on balance, it might be worthwhile having a couple of these on your phone to make the experience a little easier. Let's start with the obvious one. Mentioned it once already, Zapmpp. This app lets you locate, filter, navigate, and pay for charging across the UK and into Europe. It's the market leader with powerful filtering functionality so you can find just the charges you need. Now, personally, the filter I have set for Zapmap is simple. 50 kilowatt power or higher, multiple units at one location, four or more, and a select group of charge point operators, which includes, but is not limited to, Osprey charging, Fastned, EG Group, MFG, InstaValt. Yes, I can find others if I wish, but these are the primary ones where I know I can get a reliable charge at a reasonable or semi -reasonable price. Now, incidentally, we'll be chatting in more detail about the Zapmap app a little later in the season when I talk with Edmund Walsh, who's responsible for the development of the app. So stay tuned for that.

Now, Zapmap has a route planner included in it, but the market leader app at the moment is A Better Route Planner. Now, if you're doing a long distance journey, especially if you're traveling to the continent, this app allows tourists to plan that journey very easily.

It has a couple of things at the time of writing that the Zapmap app doesn't. And this includes integration with your battery state of charge via a US- ODB dongle. Almost said USB, no, an ODB dongle. And it also has the ability to determine state of charge at arrival at each charger. Now I know several people who do long distance journeys in their EVs and I'm talking seriously long distance like England to central Italy, who always use a better route planner because of this sort of ability.

The final app that I want to talk about today is ChargeSaint.

Euan McTurk :

I'm Dr Ewan McTurk. I'm the director and co -founder of the anti -icing app ChargeSaint.

Gary C:

So tell me about ChargeSaint, Ewan.

Euan McTurk :

So ChargeSaint is a new app that allows electric vehicle drivers to report electric vehicle public charging bay blocking, such as icing or an EV that has parked there but betrayed its brethren by not plugging in and actually using the charge point. They can report these incidents directly to the owner of the charge point to stop that from happening again. So what we do is we take the photographic evidence that it gives you very clear instructions on the app on what to take from the reports we've received so far. Everybody seems to get it, which is great. Everyone knows what they're doing. So that then gets timestamped, geolocated. We get all the information we could possibly need. That gets uploaded to our cloud server where we run some checks on it and we match it with the owner of the charge point. So whereas with previous apps which are of a similar vein but were for responsible EV drivers asking other responsible EV drivers who are actually using the charge point, can I get on that one please? Like need to charge. That one seemingly failed and that's not me saying it failed, that's like other EV drivers who've spoken to me about charge saying and going, well it will fail like this one because that's because that required the EV driver who's now blocking that charging bay or the petrol or diesel car driver who's icing that charge point to be registered on the app and you ask them to move, so pretty please. And they of course are going to go, no. Whereas all we need is the owner of that charge point to be registered as a customer of charge same. And if they've registered as a customer, we will have the ID numbers and the locations to their charge points will match it straight away, send it straight to them. only takes a couple of seconds. And then they've got a few different things they can do with that. Sometimes there's patently obvious things that can be done. Like the signage isn't good enough or isn't even there.

So you can improve the signage to make it obvious that you are actually parking in front of a charge point. You can dispatch a traffic warden to investigate in real time. And we've given them all the evidence that they possibly need to know that's exactly where they need to be. And that's exactly what's that last space.

Gary C:

I think this is a brilliant app. It's really easy to use and it will help reduce and eliminate one of the major issues that occurs with public charging, which is having someone occupy that space inappropriately.

Now we've talked about this being an issue with icing, so having a fossil fuel car park in the charging bay, but there's also the related topic of EV drivers using the bay as a parking spot and not plugging in. And this allows you to pick that one up as well. The app is available on the app store and Google play store. And I'll put a link in the show notes. Another quick sidebar for apps that display the availability of charges. I want to know the number of charging slots there are, not the number of connectors.

Gary C:

See, if I'm looking to stop, need to know that, for example, three places I can hook up to a charge, not that there are 11 connectors. If these connectors are on units that don't allow dual charging, any connector which is disabled when another connector is charging is not a connector I want to know about unless it's currently available. I also want to see this number displayed on the map, not under another icon that I have to press while driving.

If you compare this with the grid serve app showing five connectors at places like Woodall Northbound when in reality there are only two DC charges available. Reading Eastbound has 24 connectors, but the maximum number of cars that could be rapid charged at the same time is quite a few lower than that. End of sidebar. Now I talked about exceptions earlier on in this discussion, specifically reasons why you would need an app for a charger. And let's talk about these here. We've already covered one of the exceptions, charges below 8 kilowatts.

They don't usually have payment terminals, so an app is the easiest solution. But the other exception to this is fleet users. Now, as a rule, fleet users are in vehicles that are not their own. They don't want to be paying for the electricity they use. It should be charged back to the company. And there's several ways around this from an end user point of view, but most of them rely on having a fleet management system where fuel costs are managed centrally. And the way this can happen with a lot of systems is that they provide a roaming service

linked to an app or an RFID card. Now, examples of this include PAUA, P.A.U.A, see episode 153 for more from Neil Riddle from Paua, and All -Star, who are the market leaders in this at the moment. And the benefit of using something like this is that it can be linked to the vehicle rather than the users themselves. So multiple people can use the same car and the costs are all managed centrally.

So there you have it. Three and a half thousand words on apps. Why you don't need them and why you should have them. Did I miss any reasons out? Let me know at info at evimusings .com.

Gary C:

This season we're continuing to look at raising the awareness of carbon literacy with our listeners and one way we're doing that is with the carbon fact as read by carbon literacy trainer Anne Snellson.

Anne Snelson:

Want to cut your transport emissions but can't afford an EV? Why not try car sharing instead? Every journey you share saves at least half the emissions. So think who you can travel with. Be more social and save lots of emissions and money too.

Gary C:

It's time for a cool, easy or renewable thing to share with listeners. Now I love this website called Electricity Maps. Basically, it's a centralized resource that maps all the electricity generation across a huge chunk of the world and splits it by generation type. You can scan a map of the globe, pick a country and see the carbon intensity, which is all color coded and click on that to see the breakdown of usage by generation type. You can also click to see which areas are generating solar and wind production, as well as the interconnections between countries.

It's not completely real time. appears to update a couple of times per day. But if you ever want to see the difference between say the UK's generation and a specific site in the U S this is going to be your go -to website. It's at app .electricitymaps .com and the links in the show notes.

I hope you enjoyed listening to today's show. was put together today with the help of Dr Euan McTurk. Tune in next week when we chat with Ewan again and we'll be discussing the whole issue of electric vehicles and tyres. Do they last as long as tyres on ice cars? What's the story with particulates and why the tyre can make such a huge difference to your overall efficiency? If you have any thoughts, comments, criticisms or other general messages to pass on to me, I can be reached at info at efemusings .com.

On the socials, I'm on Twitter or X at Musings EV. I'm also on Instagram and EV Musings where I post short videos and podcast extracts regularly. Why not follow me there? Thanks to everyone who supports me through Patreon on a monthly basis and through coffee .com on an ad hoc one. If you enjoyed this episode, why not buy me a coffee? Go to coffee .com slash EV Musings and you can do just that. K -O dash F -I dot com slash EV Musings takes Apple pay too.

Regular listeners will know about my two ebooks, so you've gone electric and so you've gone renewable. The 99p each are equivalent and you can get them on Amazon. Check out the links in the show notes for more information, as well as a link to my regular EV Musings newsletter and associated articles. Now I know you're probably driving or walking or jogging right now as you listen, but if you can remember and you enjoyed this episode, drop me a review in iTunes, please. It really helps me out.

Gary C:

Thanks as always to my co -founder Simone. You know, he always seems to meet the strangest people while out on the electric unicycle. Only the other day he told me he was heading out to the local forest and he came across some sort of alien ship parked in the little drop -off zone there on the edge. Being a typical Brit, he tutted and decided someone else should take care of it. So he snapped a picture and emailed it to the council. He told them,

Euan McTurk:

You can dispatch a traffic warden to investigate in real time. And we've given them all the evidence that they possibly need.

Gary C:

Thanks for listening. Bye.