In Smartcar’s joint webinar with Amp X, we explored the intricacies of smart charging and how a great user experience motivates engagement and action from EV owners. Read on for a recap of the event!
80% of EV charging happens at home, but research shows that only 35% of households with EVs in the US have Level 2 chargers that support managed charging.
Although we can assume that this percentage has climbed alongside the uptick in EV adoption, the fact remains that energy management efforts accommodate a wider range of EV drivers by not relying solely on charging hardware.
Here are a few takeaways from our discussion on how Amp X uses software-based EV integrations to empower the award-winning user experience of its smart charging app, Alice.
You can watch the full webinar replay here 📺
The opportunity for smart charging
The more distance an EV driver travels each week, the warier they are about how they charge their vehicle. Nearly half of EV drivers in Europe who travel over 1,000 kilometers (about 621 miles) a week say they are more aware of their home energy usage since switching to an EV, and energy prices have increased significantly in the past year.
But utilities and DERMS (Distributed Energy Resource Management System) providers are responding by equipping grids with the technology needed to manage power demand and supply across varied energy resources — including EVs.
Flexibility is essential for grids to remain resilient while working with distributed energy sources. Today, residential areas are a great space for utilities to deploy flexibility services in partnership with software-driven solutions. Energy providers benefit by being able to:
- Accommodate the shorter windows of availability of renewable generation sources (e.g. sufficient solar energy only being available when there’s sunlight during the day)
- Reduce peak load
- Offset short-term market imbalances with flexible loads
On the other hand, EV drivers benefit by being able to optimize electricity consumption, lower electricity costs and carbon emissions, and generate revenue by allowing utilities or DERMS providers to proactively control their EV charging schedules.
How do Smartcar and Amp X work together?
There’s a human factor in enabling the success of grid flexibility services.
Consumers aren’t going to maximize energy incentives like tariffs and rebates without an easy user experience to help them stay on top of EV energy consumption and utility rates.
Amp X integrates with Smartcar’s EV APIs to power the Alice app, which gives residents a suite of features to manage their EV charging and contribute to grid decarbonization.
Smartcar’s API gives Alice compatibility with over 60+ EV models in Europe. Without installing any smart charging hardware, vehicle owners can tailor charging schedules to their unique preferences and view accurate EV data on the state of charge, cost savings, and carbon savings.
“It’s been absolutely strategic to work with Smartcar as an enabler for our technology because we've been allowed, essentially, to integrate with many different EV models. That clearly accelerates our ability to deploy and capture a greater cohort of possible users across different markets.”
— Dr. Irene Di Martino, CEO at Amp X
Amp X kicked off the Smartcar integration with 50 households at Living Lab, a community of residents around the UK who volunteer their homes to test new energy initiatives.
These were the results:
🍃 Optimized pricing and carbon emissions from 300 smart charges in four months
⚡ 8 smart chargers per month per user
💰 33% cost savings per charge
It’s simple to connect an EV to Alice via Smartcar.
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More highlights from our Q&A with Amp X 💡
During the webinar, we had a great discussion with the CEO of Amp X, Dr. Irene Di Martino on the future of grid resilience and smart charging solutions. We also got to answer many questions from the audience about the Smartcar and Amp X partnership.
We summarized a few main points below 👇 (but of course, you’ll get more details from watching the full webinar replay).
🔎 EV data from vehicle telematics vs chargers
EV telemetry data like a vehicle’s state of charge (SoC) and range are needed for residents to set their device preferences, KPIs, and charging schedules in the app.
EV chargers don’t provide this in-depth visibility.
This makes it difficult for grid solutions to decide on actions like delaying a discharge based on a vehicle’s current range, or starting a charge automatically so a vehicle has enough charge before a driver leaves for work in the morning.
👋 The user onboarding process
It isn’t enough to create a solution that lets residents manage their energy usage. It’s critical to build the solution’s value proposition around user experience to minimize drop-offs when connecting EVs and increase resident engagement for setting user preferences and acting on accurate data.
Amp X and Smartcar emphasize seamless interfaces residents can easily follow right from their first interaction with the app. Once a vehicle owner adds their EV to Alice, they’re brought through a three-click user authorization flow. In this flow, they’ll see a list of the exact data points required from the vehicle to enable smart charging.
From there, they can explicitly consent to share specific EV data with the app before taking any actions.
🛠 Interoperability standards
Although energy resources are becoming more varied, leveraging these resources effectively requires standardized data and integrations. Without standards for grid interoperability, it becomes extremely resource-intensive for utilities and their partners to scale demand management efforts at the pace required for net-zero targets.
“It’s a very complex ecosystem out there and one of the reasons we decided to work with Smartcar is essentially because having non-interoperable standards [for EVs] means a much more difficult game in getting those integrations.”
— Dr. Irene Di Martino, CEO at Amp X
Are you launching an EV smart charging app or service?
If you’re curious to learn more about optimizing your EV charging business with software-based integrations and user experiences, watch a replay of the webinar here ⚡
We’ve also included some other helpful resources you can check out:
- EV charging success stories: Discover how Smartcar has helped EV charging businesses expand their offerings and reach more users without hardware
- Scaling EV integrations for your DERMS software: Learn how companies use APIs to communicate with EVs for load management and easy opt-in
- Build vs Buy guide: Explore the factors that influence a decision to implement pre-built EV integrations instead of building them from scratch
Vehicle brands, logos, and model names belong to their respective trademark holders and do not indicate endorsement or affiliation with Smartcar or Amp X
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