How To Develop EV Charging Station Finding App?

With increasing environmental deterioration and global warming through internal combustion engines of vehicles, electrical vehicle development is recognized as an effective solution globally. Different Electrical Vehicles (EV) are strategically developed with electric motors and rechargeable battery packs in place of combustion engines and fuel tanks. The automotive industry is also taking electric vehicle development seriously as previous EV models are not well received by the people. The continuous enhancements are making people buy electric vehicles at scale as opposed to other vehicles.

The architecture of electric vehicles is simple and controllable, but finding EV charging stations is tricky for people who own EVs. Leading players such as Tesla, Tata Power, Fortum, and Ather Energy working hard to build charging networks. Also, they come up with the idea of building an EV charging station finding app which makes finding nearby EV charging stations easier.

However, just like the complications involved in manufacturing EVs, building a mobile app for finding EV charging stations is not a plain-sailing journey. In this blog, we will discuss the overview of the EV charging station finding app, why it’s required, how it works, key features that make the app work, leading EVs charging station app, monetization models, technology stack, and EV charging station finding app development cost. Let’s dive in!

What is EV Charging Station Finding App?

EV charging stations are not as common as fuel or gas stations, so finding nearby EV charging stations is tiresome. The EV charging station finding app enables users to find Electic Vehicle charging stations in close vicinity or nearby location right through mobile devices. The app facilitates booking at EV charging stations, checking real-time availability, getting directions to seamlessly navigate to EV charging stations, the amount they charge, and a lot more that makes EV charging from the selected stations effortlessly.

Why build an EV Charging Station Locator App?

The redesigned, advanced EVs are in high demand and this trend is expected to continue in the years to come. The global electric vehicle market is projected to grow to $1,318.22 billion in 2028 at a CAGR of 24.3%. Upsurges in fuel prices and the environmental impact of gasoline have increased the demand for alternative fuel vehicles, that’s electric vehicles globally.

With technology progress, the batteries are getting better, which is another reason for the meteoric rise in electric vehicle buying and selling. Of course, the rise in demand for electric vehicles followed by EV charging stations finding apps to keep the electric vehicle moving with easy access also increased. In the same vein, it brings a wide range of benefits for EV charging stations that are-

• Easy to find and locate nearby charging stations for Electic vehicle owners
• Easy access to EV charging stations improves sales and revenue of the respective EV charging station.
• First mover advantage with EV charging stations finding app development allow seizing an edge in the competition.
• Virtual connection enablement helps EV charging stations improve access to a wide range of audiences.
• Enable users to analyze EV battery consumption on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
• Vehicle owners can centrally manage and control transactions.

Which are the Best EV Charging Station-Finding Apps?

The pain of getting EV batteries charged is best known to the driver who gets into trouble when an EV’s battery gets discharged in the middle of the journey with no knowledge about nearby EV charging stations. Realizing this need and the best translating it into an EV charging station finder app helped budding entrepreneurs gain an edge in the market and make huge money. Here’s the list of the best electric charging station find and locate apps globally.

• ChargePoint
• PlugShare
• NextCharge
• EVgo
• ChargeMap
• ChargeHub
• Waze

What are the Best Features to have while Developing an EV Charging Station-Finding App?

The electric vehicle charging station finder app development is meant to provide convenience to users in getting their electric vehicles charged at EV charging stations by locating them via their mobile. It requires the app should have basic features to make the EV charging station finder app work seamlessly. The development of such mobile apps that work seamlessly requires to have important features that are listed below.

Search Filters

At EV charging stations, users are looking for outstanding services with unique options. Applying filters in the application helps users meet their requirements for charging stations such as location, station category (high power, low power, public, and others), specific type of charging plugs, availability, booking, reviews, and ratings, charging network of a particular company, and station amenities.

Charging Slot Bookings and Reservations at the Station

After applying search filters and selecting an EV charging station, users can book the slot or EV charging point to reserve at a specific time and location so that they don’t need to wait in queues during their turn to charge their vehicles such as an electric car.

In-App Navigation

With GPS and Google Map API integration in the mobile app, users can easily navigate to the booked EV charging stations with directions in real-time followed by necessary instructions.

A multitude of Payment Methods

You can choose to integrate payment gateways. Users can make the payment for charging at EV charging stations after charging or in advance through the mobile app. They can choose the type of payment such as e-wallets, UPIs, credit cards, debit cards, online payments, or any other. Plus, such mobile apps help users analyze their charging expenses at any time. Also, easy access to payment attracts more users.

Chatbot Integration

Ramp up customer support services with chatbot integration into your EV charging station locator app that facilitates instant answers to the users’ queries thereby meeting the instant gratification need of the users.

Loyalty Program

To keep the users coming to the EV charging station app repetitively, it’s essential to reward them and keep them interested. Launching loyalty programs helps businesses gain an edge over the competition and high returns in the years to come.

CRM Integration

Integration of CRM plays a vital role in nurturing relationships with customers and helping Electric Vehicle charging stations in meeting their strategic and operational needs efficiently.

Trip Planner Panel

When the user is on a long trip, the app for electric charging stations location finder sends a notification to the user about the next charging station point based on the current EV battery level and route.

Reviews and Rating

Reviews and rating features add benefits to your app as it helps to assess the service quality of EV charging stations with many other aspects that help to build a brand name and enhance user experience.

GPS Tracking

Similar to In-App Navigation, GPS tracking allows the user to find the nearby charging station location.

Add a New EV Charging Station

It helps to add new Electric Vehicle charging stations to the list that is not available, helping other users to find a new one without any problem.

How Does the EV Charging Station Finder App Work?

An EV charging station finder app works uniquely following a certain process-

Registration

After downloading and installing the EV charging stations finder app, the users need to register and log in by providing their credentials. One can also use social media or Gmail as per the features available in the app for login.

Grant Permission

After the login process, the app requires permission from the users to access their location data so that the users automatically get recommendations for nearby EV charging stations.

Identify Nearby Stations

Users can find the closest charging station for their vehicles such as electric cars by entering their current real-time GPS location in Google Maps, or on a built-in map. Images and descriptions of EV charging stations followed by their customer ratings, reviews, charging points, and fees are also displayed.

Booking of Charging Point

Users can book the available slot or charging point at EV charging stations after viewing the waiting times, distance from the current location, and others.

Payment

Users can pay the way they want based on charging their electric vehicles at electric charging stations. The payment can be made through the mobile app or directly at EV charging stations.

What Technology Stack is Used to Develop an EV Charging Station Finding App?

The solid technology stack forms the backbone of the app to find EV charging stations and allows it to perform to the notch with elegant UI. Leveraging the right set of technologies and tools makes the app competent and stays on the top of the users’ minds.

Native app development is preferred by EV charging stations for high-performance, secure, and stable app development that requires leveraging OS-specific technologies, tools, and programming languages. For Android EV charging station finding app development, Kotlin or Java are used as programming languages. And for the development of an iOS app for finding electric vehicle charging stations, requires Swift or Objective C as programming languages to write code.

Cross-platform application development is favored to reduce development costs and time-to-market the app. React, Flutter, Xamarin, and other frameworks are used at scale to make the cross-platform app for multiple platforms such as Android and iOS at the time and money investment of one app.

CSS, HTML5, and JS are mainly leveraged for brilliant interface design.

In addition to app development, EV charging stations can enhance the app with more functionalities without needing to build them from scratch with third-party integrations.

Database: – Postgres, Cassandra, HBase, MongoDB

Navigation: – Google Maps, Waze, Core Location Framework, Google Places API

Payments: – Stripe, Braintree, PayPal, EWallets

Cloud environment: – Google, Azure, AWS, VULTR

Push notifications: – Twilio, push.io

Analytics: Hadoop, Spark, Apache Flink, Cisco, IBM, and others

Server: Apache, Tomcat, and NGINX

Messaging, Voice, and Phone Verification: Nexmo, Twilio

Framework: Flutter, Laravel, jQuery

Still, if you want more details on mobile app development tech selection, refer to the mobile app development tech stack blog to know the importance of tech stack and how to select the best tech stack.

How to Build an EV Charging Station Finding App?

An EV charging station finder app development is more than writing a few lines of code and building logic. It’s a systematic approach that results in the successful development and launching of an EV charging station locator app. The 7-step process is-

Market Research

You partner with one of the top mobile app development companies to build an EV charging station finder app that’s used by electric vehicle owners to easily find nearby EV charging stations. It’s necessary to conduct market research, user research, and competition research to build an app to find charging stations for EVs such as electric cars, that bridges the gap and meets the users’ needs.

Business Plan Creation

An Electric Vehicle charging station needs to create a strategic plan around the research’s key findings to accomplish sales and ROI goals. The competitor’s business model study gives insights into ways to generate revenue and summarizes the app’s specifications.

Development Partner Selection

Choosing the right EV charging station finder app development service provider is critical as it may make or break the app’s success. With thousands of options available for development companies, it’s difficult to find the best one. Checking the portfolio, looking at the reviews and ratings, screening candidates, and communicating with existing clients help businesses to choose the best mobile app development company to hire that helps with full-fledged solution development meeting their needs.

Identify the List of Features

When you have decided on the development company for hire, it’s essential to be ready with a list of features to keep in the initial and subsequent releases of the app. Also, plan for the advanced features for future upgrades to keep the users engaged using the app for ev charging stations.

UI/UX Design

Design a locator app to find charging stations for Electic vehicles in a way that makes searching and booking battery charging at EV stations seamless. That’s where UI/UX designing plays a vital role. It starts with wireframing, navigation structure, app flow, and more.

Functionality Development

When the EV charging station finding app is in the development process, the defined functionalities are also developed in the same vein. Initially, it is built with basic functionalities in sprints and gradually enhanced to test the application idea and not reinvent the wheel. Prefer going MVP way and then incrementally build the app for your EV charging station.

Test and Iterate

The electric vehicle charging station locator app is ready from the developers’ end, it’s time to check it from a user perspective to ensure it’s bug-free and performs as expected with no resolution concerns. Based on the feedback, the tested app is iterated repetitively until it matches client expectations.

Support and Maintenance

A charging station finder app continues providing EV charging services to the customers till the EV charging station is there. The app needs to update with technological progress and changing market trends, which are supported by reliable mobile app developers.

How Electric Vehicle Charging Stations Make Money with Their Location-Finding App?

The stations providing charging services to electric vehicles are investing heavily in the development of apps to get easily located to add convenience to electric vehicle users in getting their EV’s battery charged from their station. In the same vein, they want to earn money with apps to find their charging station. First, understand your app development cost in detail and then look at various ways to make money.

In-App Advertisement

An EV station for charging allows third-party businesses to advertise through their EV charging station finder app. Basically, 5 types of native ads are popular such as notification ads, capture forms, full-screen ads, advanced overlay, and banner ads.

Sponsorship

An EV charging station finder apps are generally free to download. That’s where allowing affiliates, brands, and companies to run promotional content brings a good sum of money to EV charging station owners.

Paid Membership

Once, the app scored enough popularity with its unique services. The EV charging station finder app can start charging users for the best services they are getting through membership plans. Interested users can opt for monthly, quarterly, or annual membership to increase return on investment (ROI).

Product Merchandising and eCommerce Integration

An EV charging station can start selling electric vehicle-related accessories or products that help users extend the life of their EVs and batteries. The selling of related products right through the app improves business ROI.

How Much Does it Cost to Develop an EV Charging Station Locator App?

The reasons behind spending on EV charging station locator apps is obvious. Despite the plethora of benefits and monetization opportunities provided by the EV charging station finder app, businesses want to know how much will it cost to build an EV charging solution.

The starting cost of EV charging station finder app development typically ranges from $20,000 to $60,000 based on the features added, UI/UX design, developers’ location, technology stack, and more. Locator app for EV charging stations require approx 180-250* hours to develop and hourly rate of mobile app developers varies from $20 to $150 that depends on the development company’s location.

Post-development, the app maintenance cannot be forgotten, which costs nearly 10-15% of the EV charging station finder app development cost. Based on your budget for EV charging station finder app development, select the company that helps you move ahead without increasing your budget and provide you with on-time delivery of app will all the required features that have been decided beforehand.

Make Your EV Charging Station Stand Out with an App

The Go Green initiative and wide acceptance of EVs are expected to make electric vehicles- the future of the automotive industry. It indicates the need to search for EV charging stations is certain to increase. This, in turn, ensures that building a dedicated EV charging station finder app by EV charging stations is an ideal choice.

However, engineering EV charging station finder apps considering various aspects from the development process, technology stack and features to development cost and monetization model is all-important to make the app perform impeccably and deliver a wow experience.

Interested in building the best app for finding EV charging stations? Get connected with a trustable mobile app development company that can help you with EV charging station finder app development without scope creep, timeline extension, and budget overruns.