By: Mukesh Kumar Bansal- Chief Technology Officer of TelioEV
You never realize the important role technology plays in our life in terms of speed and convenience until it comes into practice. This year embarked on everything, healthcare appointments in minutes, groceries delivered to you in 10 minutes, wireless car charging, battery swapping, and just when you thought you had seen it all, the market was yet again surprised with smart EV charging.
Gone are the days when you had to navigate the stations, understand the topological and mechanical aspects of the stations and act upon them within a given time frame to save your EV from dying in the middle of the road trip.
EVs are now smart enough to do it all on their own!
Taking the motto of “taking care of your EV needs” to the next level, smart EV charging enables your charging point operator to monitor and manage all your EV needs and maintenance via the cloud and smart EV technologies. They have the record of all the live updates of your EV, thus, helping them in making the right decisions and taking the best care of your EVs.
The best part about technology is the customizations that follow the advancements unsaid. You can tailor the features according to your specific needs and the degree of control you’d like your CPO to have. Features can be easily integrated or removed from smart EV care.
Now let’s address the elephant in the room, “Smart EV Charging.”
Following up with the advancements that the technology has made, controlling an EV via the cloud sounds a bit realistic, but the smart charging still sounds a bit too good and unrealistic to begin with.
Let’s understand how it works.
Do you know why conventional cars are still preferred over EVs, in spite of their fuel being more expensive than the EV? Because charging them is easier since gasoline charging stations are widely available!
Smart charging makes EV charging as easy and effortless as the conventional vehicle refill.
All you need to do is to connect to the right vendor and complete the identification at the charging station. Once your data is fed to the backend system, you can now proceed to be verified as a certified customer. Now you can access any charging station near to you, charge your EV, and your transactions will be completed online, hassle-free since everything is fully automated.
Here are the pre-requisites for setting up smart EV chargers:
- To ensure that the stations are connected to the cloud, devices should be enabled with proper connection to ensure smooth communication services.
- Devices should consist of standardized socket types: Type 2 or CHAdMO and CCS combo(in case of fast charging).
- The devices should be well entwined with the backend via the standard protocol named OCPP.
This enables you to smoothly mix and match your hardware and software components for maximum benefits.
The best part about this model is that it is designed both for the EV user and the business providers’ mutual good.
EV users can hover and select a charging station easily from the list of stations that is made available to them via the smart charging apps. This further enables fast charging as smart devices are built that way. They are programmed to choose the maximum power to enable automatic fast charging.
Smart charging profiles also let you manage what happens at the backend and thus play a major role in load management. This is what we meant by grid management which is useful for both customers and business providers.
It is useful to the customers because their vehicles are being charged in the most optimal way based on the power availability and good even for the business provider as the consumption grid is maintained. Since these smart chargers are supervised and end-to-end operated by third-party professionals rather than untrained individuals, the charging experience becomes much safer and more reliable.
Also Read: SIAM hosts technology demonstration on ethanol-based flex fuel vehicles in India
Apart from all these benefits, smart chargers are also an environment-friendly option as they provide users to track the minimum electricity consumption hours, and thus, plugging in during those hours not only maintains the grid but also benefits the environment. This also helps the CPOs as they can monitor the EV health of their customers remotely and enjoy hassle-free payments simultaneously. This helps in attaining an overall peaceful setup that is good for both customers as well as the provider.
Now for the main question, “Is smart charging the future of EV charging?”
It is safe to say that smart EV charging is completely future-proof as it addresses all the major issues that make the future better and promotes sustainability.
With the introduction of smart EV charging, the sky is the limit, as it has much more than just charging and conventional monitoring.
There’s a lot that has been seen and a lot that has yet to be unveiled.
We don’t know which direction technology will take us next, but we have tightened our seat belts because we can safely say that the adventure has just begun, and we cannot wait for our next stop!
Disclaimer: Views expressed are personal and do not reflect the official position or policy of Financial Express Online. Reproducing this content without permission is prohibited.
