Smartcar is partnering with Recurrent, a platform that offers used electric vehicle (EV) battery condition reports on electric cars. Recurrent uses Smartcar’s APIs for its research fleet, enabling volunteer drivers to receive free monthly EV battery reports on their vehicles. Smartcar’s technology allows Recurrent to easily connect to a volunteer’s car and remotely monitor important data such as its mileage, state of charge, and charging status.
Buying a used EV is different
For the longest time, the process of buying used cars was simple. Prospective buyers visited a local dealership and inquired about a car’s age, mileage, and mechanical problems before purchasing the vehicle. Today, the used car market has rapidly changed. Most used vehicle purchases are now initiated online, and electric cars are becoming more and more popular. These two developments pose a significant challenge: EV batteries are complicated to inspect, making it difficult to determine how much a battery has deteriorated since it left the factory floor. Buying a used electric vehicle can thus be extremely risky.
A trusted platform for the used electric vehicle market
“Recurrent is the first company to help buyers of used EVs answer their core questions,” said Recurrent CEO and Co-Founder Scott Case. “Buyers want to understand how a vehicle’s range changes with age, how long they can expect a battery to last, and whether they are getting an ‘electric lemon.’”
Both private buyers and dealerships can use Recurrent’s platform to receive reports about a vehicle’s true range as the battery ages. Recurrent has built proprietary predictive algorithms that allow the company to generate its independent reports.
“While Recurrent empowers car buyers by making the used EV market more transparent, Smartcar empowers developers like Recurrent by making it easy to connect to a customer’s vehicle,” said Smartcar CEO Sahas Katta. “We’re excited to be working with Recurrent and accelerating both of these missions.”
Smartcar powers Recurrent’s research fleet
To improve and refine its machine learning algorithms, Recurrent launched its research fleet program in late July. Volunteers can join the research fleet to receive free monthly battery reports for their EVs. Recurrent utilizes the cars’ data to train its predictive algorithms and produce more accurate ratings.
Recurrent uses the Smartcar platform to onboard each volunteer’s car and retrieve important vehicle and EV battery information. Volunteers can connect their car and agree to share their vehicle data with just a few clicks from the Recurrent app. Recurrent then uses Smartcar’s APIs to monitor the car’s mileage, range estimates, state of charge, and charging status to train their battery performance algorithms.
During the first month of the program, Recurrent successfully onboarded over 1,300 vehicles to its research fleet.
“Smartcar has been instrumental for the success of our research fleet,” said Case. “Not only does the Smartcar platform provide amazing technology. Their team has also helped us integrate in just a few weeks and enabled us to scale incredibly fast.”
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