ChargePoint and EVBox Pave the Way for Fully Electric Future

[Adam Varga + 123]

ChargePoint and EVBox, two of the world’s leading EV charging networks, announced a roaming agreement that will enable EV drivers to roam between charging networks, making EV charging more accessible than ever. Beginning in January 2019, EV drivers will be able to seamlessly roam on the ChargePoint and EVBox networks while traveling throughout Europe and North America. The agreement eliminates the need to register for multiple accounts and ensures drivers don’t incur additional fees when roaming.

[Brian W + 78]

That's great news, but it's difficult to ignore the fact that this lack of ability to roam was a bug by design in how these companies setup their networks. There was already a universal card available, the credit card, that they chose not to use in an effort to lock people into their network.

[Vlad Kovalenko + 115]

Roaming is not the answer. It's a unreliable, obfuscates pricing, and is a poor user experience. The charging networks of the future need to accept credit cards directly at the charger. Gas pumps don't require memberships, fiddly RFIDs, and unreliable apps to buy petrol. Why should chargers?

[Brian W + 78]

Agree the gas pump model makes sense. I have no problem if networks wish to have loyalty cards and discount scheme's. But make payment via CC available at all stations.

[BlackTortoise + 103]

It really depends on the country though. In some European countries you can pay almost anything with a bank card and contactless payments were adopted very quickly. But in some other countries Visa and Mastercard are not accepted everywhere. 

[Brian W + 78]

Debit/credit cards are different but who care if we can pay with it at any charger ? We don't need proprietary closed cards. If you want to travel from one side of the Europe to another last thing you need is 20 different cards or RFID. That insane. 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

They have to make the entire, repeat entire, experience better than driving and servicing an ICE automobile.  Roaming agreements already leave a very bad taste in people's mouths from our experience with mobile phones and should not even be a consideration for the EV user in day to day operations.  It's bad enough that I have to wait for a recharge, don't hit me with your petty revenue side generation from roaming agreements (petty and irritating to me; I don't care if you make millions hitting us all with them).  All the major telecommunications companies share networks and EV companies can do the same (do you want this to work or not?).

If you want to rise to the level of getting my business, you will 1) have me pull up to a fuel cell replacement point, 2) I insert/swipe any bank card I wish to use, 3) have a door open with 2 slots inside; 1 for the fully charged fuel cell and 1 for my spent fuel cell, 4) I pop out my spent fuel cell and place it into the open slot* on the fuel cell replacement point, 5) remove the fully charged fuel cell and insert it into my automobile, 6) I drive away.

*At the moment both spent and fully charged cells are in the fuel cell replacement point (the "pump" if you will) at the same time, they must detect each other and transfer user authorization instantly for this particular transaction.  Fuel cell replacement point must have additional options for assistance, and I must have a cash option at full service stations.