Car Charged picks KORE to connect EV charging stations

  • September 20, 2021
  • Steve Rogerson

Car Charged, a UK electric vehicle (EV) charging station company with access to 65,000 charging points, has selected KORE as its IoT partner.

According to research from Berg Insight, the total number of dedicated charging points in Europe is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 33 per cent from 2.3 million in 2020 to 9.7 million by 2025.

Car Charged selected KORE to help it solve a problem holding back the rapid expansion and adoption of electric vehicles – reliable connectivity for charging stations, especially given the vast complexities across the different cellular networks and other technologies required.

In dense, urban areas such as London, it is difficult for cellular signals to penetrate the places where electric vehicle owners are parking and charging their cars, which tends to be mostly in underground car parks and basements typically built with thick cement and steel.

“The wireless race is on in the electric vehicle industry,” said KORE CEO Romil Bahl. “The promise of electric vehicles is strong, but it’s still messy to make the vision a reality, especially in major cities. KORE is delighted to help enable this industry in another IoT-for-good use case, given the significant effect that electrical vehicles can have on reducing greenhouse gases. IoT is playing a critical role in building out the infrastructure that can speed up more electrical vehicles rolling on the road.”

A quality cellular signal is critical to electric vehicle charging stations because that is how data are read, captured and transported back to electric vehicle charging companies. Data being thrown off the charging stations are used for customer support, billing and predictive maintenance of the charging units.

Wireless communications are critical for the future of the electric vehicle car sector. Car Charged is one of the first companies deep into the proof-of-concept stage of deploying wireless charging stations in London. Wireless communications also solve another problem: ergonomics. With wireless connectivity, charging stations can be placed out of sight in neighbourhoods.

Lionel Mathia, managing director of Car Charged, said: “Pivoting car charging stations to wireless technology will enable the UK’s estimated eight million electric cars owners without off-street parking to access more charging points nearer home, to charge fairly, safely and with no visual impact, which will have a substantial effect on turning the tide of climate change.”

The KORE multi-faceted approach includes hardware – such as routers and antennas – that drives high reliability smart roaming technology and multi-network, resilient connectivity to provide coverage in all locations. Having the ability to connect to 2G, 3G and 4G across all network operators means there is a statistically much higher chance of a connection even in the most inclement radio network conditions.

Another often overlooked way of getting cellular into hard-to-reach places is the ability to send SMS messages to the active equipment to diagnose problems and provide ways to fix them remotely. Even the best designed systems will have glitches occasionally and the ability to resolve with an SMS instead of a site visit can have a beneficial impact on the operators’ costs.

Car Charged is an electric vehicle charging station company with access to 65,000 charging points across Emea.