In order to accelerate the widespread usage of electric vehicles (EVs), a new partnership aims to help allay potential electro-mobility customers’ concerns concerning the location of recharging stations during a journey.
Cloud-based location services company Here Automotive Services is aiming to solve the problem by providing rich and dynamic information on EV charging stations via its EV Charging API (application programming interface). The company has recently increased its service coverage in Europe due to a new collaboration with Finnish company Virta. The Helsinki-based company currently operates EV charging networks in several European countries and provides a modular scalable turnkey system for charging point operators (CPOs), including management and payment systems. Virta has signed a cooperation agreement with Here, which is providing it with intelligent location services.
Virta operates hundreds of public EV charging stations in several European countries, which have now been connected to the Here EV Charging location platform. The Here location platform aggregates content on EV charging and fuel stations, as well as off-street parking facilities, and by delivering this information to connected vehicles, allows drivers to make more informed decisions on the road.
The Here EV Charging service helps drivers find EV charging stations around any location or destination, which best fit their needs, and which are filtered by connector availability, the desired connector type and pricing, as well as other attributes of interest. With Virta and Here systems integrated to operate seamlessly in the background, the service has now become even more robust.
“Developing reliable charging systems is a key prerequisite for the electro-mobility growth. Services must be easy to use, and EV drivers must have relevant information at hand,” said Virta’s CEO, Jussi Palola.”
Now the charging station users have up-to-date quality information about the network’s status meeting the global requirements. Here is a key partner in building global services for EV drivers. EV charging services today are a heterogeneous market consisting of many independent charging networks. As a global player Here has the ability to provide a high quality EV charging information service to users all over the world.”
Samuli Lehtonen, content sourcing analyst at Here, commented, “We are very pleased to be working with the team at Virta to expand the breadth of charging point information available for drivers of electric vehicles.
“We aim to give EV drivers access to many diverse sources of information in one single place, so they can plan their routes with ease and confidence.
“Now that we are also incorporating fresh streams of data from Virta, we believe the quality and breadth of information we provide EV drivers is the most comprehensive across any platform.”
