Develop An EV Charging Station Finder App Like PlugShare

The market for electric cars has seen dramatic changes in recent years due to constant advancements in the automobile industry. Additionally, the demand for electric cars has increased as governments across the globe have become more conscious of the environment. As the number of cars on the road increases, so does the demand for EV charging app development.

Since EV charging stations are fewer in number, difficult to locate, and expensive to set up, companies are investing in the development of EV charging station finder apps. These apps make it easy for motorists to find nearby charging stations, make payments, and even book a charging appointment ahead of time. EV charging app development has become one of the most popular trends, as users are actively seeking such solutions.

If you’re looking to create an EV charging station locator application, you’ve come to the right place. This blog covers various aspects of EV Charging App Development.

What Is An Electric Vehicle Charging App?

This mobile-friendly app is designed for electric vehicle drivers, allowing them to search for nearby charging points for their own vehicles as well as others. The app can be used in so many ways, helping users find charging stations based on location, availability of booking slots, wait times, charging fees, and other factors.

For example, if there are five EV charging stations within a 5-mile radius, the car owner can choose to charge their vehicle at the station with the best customer service, considering factors like wait time, payment options, and more. Additionally, users can pay for charging directly through the app. If a nearby station becomes busy, users can reserve a charging slot in advance, eliminating the need to wait in long lines.

What Is Plugshare?

PlugShare is an app that assists those who own electric vehicles (EVs) locate charging points nearby. It can be used on both iOS as well as Android and has a user-friendly interface, which displays charging stations on a Google map.

The app will also display charging station types, prices as well as the availability. PlugShare connects electric vehicles (EVs) to charging stations throughout the world. The EV charging locater app includes a charging database that includes the model of charger it is available in real-time, and reviews from customers.

PlugShare offers an online community feature that permits users to leave and read remarks about charging stations. This provides invaluable information on the overall quality of each station. PlugShare provides route planning as well as payment options for easy transactions. The app allows electric vehicles to drive with ease and not worry about power shortages or getting stuck out in the wilderness with no access to the convenience of a charging station.

Why Invest In An EV Charging Finder App?

Investing in EV charging station app development services, like those offered by PlugShare, can benefit you in many ways. The industry is relatively new, with only a few competitors, making it an excellent opportunity for growth.

Growing Market For Electric Vehicles

The market for electric vehicles has seen explosive growth, driven by environmental concerns, government incentives, and advances in battery technology. As more and more people use electric vehicles, the demand for reliable, convenient charging infrastructure continues to rise.

Addressing Range Anxiety

One of the major challenges to EV adoption is anxiety, the fear of running out of battery power is real and not being able to find a charging station. The EV charging station finder app helps alleviate this by providing real-time data on charging station locations and their availability.

Enhancing Customer Experience

By offering a seamless, user-friendly way to find charging stations, EV Charging App Development can greatly enhance the experience for EV owners. This convenience could lead to higher satisfaction and greater customer loyalty.

Time-Saving

The time spent searching for and reserving a charging station can be significantly reduced by using an app designed specifically for this purpose. It’s important to choose an experienced mobile app developer to create an effective application. For example, if you’re planning a trip, you can use the app to calculate the distance between the EV charging stations and plan your route accordingly.

Include Your Shop On The Map

In addition to boosting brand visibility, charging stations can also drive sales. With the EV charging station finder app, users can easily find nearby stores that offer charging facilities for electric cars. Since EV owners often recharge their vehicles while shopping, stores located near charging points may attract more customers, encouraging them to choose one store over another.

Must-Have Features Of An EV Charging Station Finder App

Here’s a checklist of essential features you can incorporate into your EV charging app development for an enhanced user experience.

User Sign-Up

After installing and downloading the app, users will be required to sign up using their phone number, email, and a password. To make the process faster and more efficient, you can allow your app users to easily sign up via their Google Account or other social media accounts.

Geolocation

This feature of EV charging station app development allows users to instantly view nearby charging stations using their phone’s location. Additionally, users can search for charging stations within a specific region by entering an address and viewing available options.

Station Details

The app should display key details about charging stations as users browse nearby electric vehicle charging points. Information could include the station’s name, compatible car models, pricing, location, address, photos, ratings, reviews, and other relevant details. This will help users easily choose their preferred station and make payments.

Nearby Charging Stations

Based on the app’s access to the user’s current location or the location entered by the user, the app will highlight the nearest charging points. The goal of showing nearby stations is to help users save time and energy by finding the closest option to recharge their vehicle.

Booking Slots

Once a user has selected a charging station through the app, they can reserve a time slot in advance to ensure their vehicle is fully charged. This is a valuable feature of EV Charging App Development, particularly during peak times when stations are crowded. Booking in advance prevents users from waiting in long lines.

User Ratings and Reviews

After charging their electric vehicle, users can rate the station based on their experience. This feature is important for improving service quality and provides feedback on the charging station’s performance, helping future users make more informed decisions.

Push Notifications

Push notifications can send customized deals, offers, text messages, and transaction details once a user pays via the EV charging station finder mobile application. Customers will receive notifications or reminders about nearby charging stations, upcoming bookings, new entries, and more through the EV charging station locator app.

Various Payment Options

Your application should offer a variety of payment gateways, tailored to the user’s country or region. Allow customers to choose from multiple payment methods within the app, so they can use whichever option is most convenient. For example, users could pay using UPI, e-wallets, PayPal, or a debit/credit card.

Billing History

Users should be able to view the history of their bills, including how much energy they’ve used and the corresponding charges. This feature allows customers to monitor their appointments, energy consumption as well as costs on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

EV Trip Planner

If a user is planning a long road trip, they may need to charge their vehicle at multiple locations. To make this easier, an itinerary planner feature allows users to input their departure point and destination. The app will then display all available charging stations along the route.

Filters

When searching for or browsing charging stations, users can apply filters to find the most suitable station. This feature is highly appreciated by the app users as it saves time. For instance, if there are many stations in a specific area but none are compatible with the user’s vehicle, they can apply the necessary filters to view only stations that work with their car. Filters can be used to determine compatibility with charging points, power levels, network connectivity, and whether the station has fast or slow chargers.

AI-Based Chatbot

Smart chatbots can make users’ lives easier by providing assistance and answering questions whenever needed. Based on frequently asked questions, chatbots can respond automatically. If the chatbot cannot answer a question, it can be escalated to a support manager.

Rewards Points

To encourage regular use of your app, consider offering rewards points to customers in the form of discounts, vouchers, coupons, or even free membership for one month. Rewards points can increase customer loyalty and attract more users to your app.

How To Build An EV Charging Station Finder App Like PlugShare?

Before you begin developing the EV Charging Station App, it’s crucial to have a clear plan in place to guide you toward success. Below, we’ve outlined the steps for developing an EV charging app, like PlugShare, ChargePoint, or others, that you can follow to create your own EV Charging App.

Perform The Research

The first step is to research the market for EV charging station apps and the technologies used in these mobile applications. Gather key information on EV charging stations and their locations to incorporate into the app later. 

Additionally, you must verify all details related to charging stations to ensure the trust and reliability of users utilizing the EV charging station locator app. It is also recommended to gain a comprehensive understanding of the operations and business models of competitors, such as PlugShare, ChargePoint, Electrify America, Volta, and others, as well as their EV charging system developments.

Build Your Development Team

One important thing to keep in mind is that developing an EV charging station locator app, like PlugShare, is not an easy task and requires deep knowledge of mobile app development. An inexperienced individual with limited skills and knowledge won’t be able to create an app that competes with top companies in the market. This is why we recommend hiring a leading EV charging station app development company to build your EV charging station locator app effectively.

Design The Wireframe

It’s now time to start creating the wireframe for the EV charging station locator app by assigning your development team. It’s essential to design your user interface, including icon layouts, screen design, and other elements, ensuring they are sophisticated yet user-friendly.

 Avoid cluttering the interface with unnecessary components, as this could negatively impact the overall user experience. Based on top electric vehicle charging platform firms, there are various design tools available to help create the wireframe.

Start The Development

Once the planning phase is done, now you can begin developing the electric vehicle charging station locator app with the help of experienced app developers. One of the leading EV charging system design firms recommends creating an MVP (Minimum Viable Product), as this approach speeds up the development process and allows room for last-minute adjustments.

The EV charging app development team should focus on both backend and frontend development, working regularly to ensure a seamless design process for the EV charging station locator app. Incorporate essential features and functionalities, and integrate third-party APIs for location tracking and payment gateways, while building an engaging and useful mobile app for the EV charging market.

Test The EV Charging Station Finder App

After the development process, the next step is to thoroughly test the EV charger finder application across various platforms, such as iOS and Android, to make sure it runs smoothly without any issues. Additionally, you may release a beta version of the app, allowing a limited number of users to try it out and provide useful feedback. 

If any changes are needed, especially to the location tracking or the development of the EV charging systems, make the necessary adjustments before moving on to the next stage.

Launch The EV Charging Station Finder App

Once all issues are resolved and you are confident that your EV charger station locator app is working seamlessly, it’s time to launch the app for general use. The app can be published on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, making it available for users to download and start using. After the launch, you must focus on promoting your electric vehicle charger finder app by developing effective marketing strategies.

Maintain The EV Charging Station Finder App

Lastly, it is essential to regularly update your EV charger station locator app to keep up with emerging technologies and trends. You should consider adding new features, refreshing the UI, and improving the accuracy of your data regularly. Furthermore, incorporating cutting-edge technology, such as Artificial Intelligence, can make your EV charger finder app more user-friendly, secure, and distinct from other apps.

How Much Does It Cost To Develop An EV Charging Station Finder App?

The cost of EV charging station app development services for electric vehicle charging apps typically ranges from CAD 15,000 to 30,000 for basic features and functionalities. Simpler to mid-sized apps for finding EV charging stations are priced between CAD 35,000 and 60,000. Finally, developing a more sophisticated EV charging station locator mobile app can cost around CAD 70,000 or more.

The total price for EV charging app development depends on various important factors. The most significant factors include the complexity of the app, the features it offers, the platform you choose (Android, iOS, or both), and the geographical location of the development firm.

Monetization Opportunities For EV Charging Station App

Once you’ve developed your mobile app, it’s only natural to consider how to make money from it. Subscription fees, advertising, transaction commissions, and other revenue streams can all be utilized to monetize an EV charging app. Let’s explore each of these methods in more detail.

Paid/Sponsored Ads

You can allow other related companies to display advertisements or promotional material within your mobile app to promote the electric chargers. This is among the best methods to earn money through your application for charging EVs. Advertisements can be displayed and then charge them based on the amount of impressions and clicks.

The majority of electric vehicle charging applications don’t charge users to use the charging software. With this kind of business model advertising content with a promotional theme can make you money. This could be an effective method of monetization since many companies are searching for advertising and marketing via popular applications.

E-commerce Integration

The purpose of the revenue model is to generate income without causing inconvenience or loss. You can earn money by incorporating e-commerce functions via membership. A user should be able to pay a monthly subscription fee to use your application. 

In return, you’ll earn money each time a subscriber uses the app. If you want to offer users a free membership, you could charge them for making an appointment at a charging point. Additionally, you could reimburse customers and charging stations.

Membership Fee

You can request an appropriate amount from the app users in exchange for the benefits and services you’re offering. An EV charging station locator app certainly provides many benefits for customers. You can implement a subscription model for your EV charging app development that helps users locate charging stations for electric vehicles.

This allows you to profit from users on a quarterly, monthly, semi-annual, or annual basis. Therefore, each time new members join, you can earn money. Additionally, the annual fees from existing members can further increase your earnings.

Future Of EV Charging Stations

As we observe the development of electric vehicles in the technological and automotive sectors, it is clear that they have significant potential. However, there is still much to learn about their full capabilities. They certainly offer an environmentally sustainable future. By converting cars to HEVs and PHEVs using the latest technologies, we could reduce the amount of foreign oil we use by 30 to 50 percent, while cutting CO2 emissions by 20%. Additionally, statistics show that many leading nations around the world are taking decarbonization seriously and are transitioning toward electric vehicles.

By 2030, the automotive industry will largely switch to electric vehicles. Electric vehicle adoption is expected to reach 45 percent of the predicted targets for regulatory compliance. With support from AWS IoT, the highways of leading countries will be managed by electric cars and EV charging stations, and the electrification of vehicles will help ensure that our world isn’t negatively impacted.

In Conclusion

There will be an abundance of amazing electric vehicles with impressive capabilities and future features. As the demand for electric cars increases, the need for chargers will also rise, leading to a greater demand for charging spot-finding apps.

Additionally, governments are encouraging the use of EVs and electrifying public transportation, including taxis and buses. This contributes to cleaner air. Therefore, creating a custom EV charger station locator app will give you an advantage in the race to be first and stand out in the competition. Users of this kind of app expect the highest quality and an excellent user experience.