The European Union is the global frontrunner in adopting electric vehicles (EVs): its member countries are responsible for more than a quarter of the world’s EV production, and EVs represented roughly 20 percent of its new-car sales in 2021. The European EV Charging Infrastructure Masterplan, a report from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), suggests that the EU is in need of reliable sustainable mobility charging infrastructure of at least 3.4 million public charging points including extensive utility grid upgrades, resulting in cumulative costs upward of €240 billion by 2030 – in need of reliable sustainable mobility charging infrastructure.
By 2030 the EU 27 needs to scale up from its current 340,000 charging stations to the estimated 3.4 million public chargers required to meet the needs of its future EV fleet. That figure includes 2.9 million public chargers for passenger cars, 0.4 million for light commercial vehicles, and 0.1 million for trucks and buses. It does not include the estimated 29 million private charging stations that homeowners, apartment building managers, and workplace parking operators would have to install. Although there are no reliable numbers of private charging points available, according to exemplary calculations, there will be a charging point available at around 61% of private residential parking spaces by 2030, in Germany. This could translate into a ratio of 9-10 private charging points per1 public charging station.
MOBIX Micromobility
MOBIX has been promoting sustainable mobility since 2021 when the MOBIX app was launched to incentivize the use of micromobility, i.e. small, lightweight vehicles such as bikes, eBikes, eScooters, mopeds, or cargo bikes. By collecting MOBIX Miles for each micromobility trip users were informed about the amount of saved CO2. For up to 3,500 daily micromobility trips worldwide, MOBIX Family members have been saving about 1,000 kg of CO2 per day.
MOBIX Ecomobility
The upcoming version of the MOBIX app will additionally support long-distance sustainable mobility – electric vehicles (EVs). Since most EVs are privately owned and don‘t come with replaceable batteries, EV drivers rely on their individually owned chargers, and the public EB´V charging infrastructure. Compared with gas stations for combustion engines, there are very few public EV charging stations. Together with a generally limited range of EVs, this inadequate charging infrastructure is the main reason for the so-called ‘range anxiety‘ – the overall fear an EV will not have enough battery charge to reach its destination, leaving its occupants stranded.
Imagine…..Your Personal EV Scenario
Imagine, for a second, you drive an electric vehicle, and you‘re planning a business trip to another city, about 300km away. Your workshop has a duration of 4–5 hours, and you can‘t stay overnight. In this case, you certainly would like to know exactly where to recharge your EV in the immediate vicinity of your appointment. And you would love not having to search around for a free charging station. The ideal scenario for you would look like this: you open your favorite app, search for the best-located chargers in your destination, and then you reserve the best option for the time of your estimated arrival. Based on the in-app information of the charger you can pre-calculate how long you will have to re-charge in order to be on the safe aide for your trip back home. After you have arrived, you start the charging process – only to return to a fully charged car after 5 hours – and you pay with your app.
In Need Of Reliable Sustainable Mobility Charging Infrastructure? MOBIX Park & Charge!
Too good to be true? Today – yes. But not from September 2023 on. This ideal scenario will come true with the launch of Park & Charge, the new EV feature of the MOBIX app. Searching for hitherto inaccessible private charging points, reserving, charging, and paying – all will be possible with the new MOBIX app! MOBIX opens the EV charging infrastructure for private charging points and therefore adds up to 10 times the number of chargers to existing (public) charging stations.
However, this grand MOBIX vision comes with a caveat: due to the multitude of charging hardware and standards, MOBIX Park & Charge requires the active participation of the MOBIX users: a MOBIX user who adds her charging point to Park & Charge, must be personally available – or charge someone else on her behalf – to start and end the charging session. This personal participation is comparable with buying or selling something through classifieds. This “human factor” is not only an additional requirement, but it makes MOBIX Park & Charge safer and more personal. In an increasingly automated world, the human factor might prove to become a decisive factor for safe and trustworthy transactions.
MOBIX Park & Charge will be launched at IAA Mobility 2023, the leading event and platform for holistic mobility. Based on the commitment of the MOBIX team to fully privacy-preserving data management standards based on the GAIA-X framework and the involvement of the associated company Datarella in moveID – a project of the GAIA-X mobility family – MOBIX Park & Charge is fully compliant with respective rules and standards. In its non-public B2B version, the MOBIX app will additionally feature several state-of-the-art GAIA-X-compliant SSI features that might become elements of the future mobility standard and that is currently developed by the moveID project members. If you are interested in more information about the B2B version of the MOBIX app in particular, please follow the moveID Twitter or contact the communications team directly: info (at) moveID (dot) org.
You also might want to join our MOBIX communities on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Telegram, and discuss all things ecomobility with the MOBIX team – see you there!