How to Develop an EV Charging Station Finder App: Features & Cost
The electric car market has evolved dramatically in the last few years, thanks to continuing advancements in the automotive industry. In addition, the desire for electric vehicles has grown as governments worldwide become more environmentally conscious.
Also, some of the leading companies worldwide, such as Tesla, Nissan, BMW, and Volkswagen are contributing a lot to the electric vehicle industry.
Due to this, there is a constant need for electric charging stations in various locations. These stations are connected to the charging networks.
After buying an electric vehicle, people struggle to find the nearest EV charging station. But, the EV charging station finder apps have come as a savior. These apps allow users to locate nearby charging outlets. Moreover, users can also make payments and book a specific time slot for charging their vehicle.
If you are excited to develop an EV charging station locator app, then you have reached the right place. We have developed various mobile apps for clients worldwide. Hence, we know the essentials required for building such an app.
Here, we will walk you through various aspects of the EV charging station finder app development. These include how it works, business models, key features, tech stack, and cost.
Before we move on, let’s go through the basics:
What is the EV Charging Station Finder App?
The EV charging station finder app presents you with various charging stations located in your area. In addition, the app provides you with information about the stations’ plugs. Users may acquire real-time availability, photos, rating, and descriptions of charging stations with the app.
Moreover, users can add EV charging stations as they come across them.
How Does EV Charging Station Finder App Work?
Here is the streamlined process on how an EV charging station finder app works:
- You have to create an account on the app using your email address, phone number, and password. Besides this, you can also log in using third-party apps like Facebook or Google.
- After completing the registration process, you have to provide your location or allow the app to access your location. The EV charging station finder app will assist in displaying nearby charging stations based on your location.
- You can search nearby locations and view crucial station information, including pricing, images, descriptions, compatible EVs, and availability.
- You can reserve a time slot for charging your EV ahead of time. By booking the slot in advance, you can have a look at the charging level and progress in the app.
- You can also see how much a charging station owes and make the payment at the charging station or through the app.
Why Should You Invest in an EV Charging Station Finder App?
There are various advantages to developing an EV charging station finder app. It is still a relatively untapped industry with little competition. Here are some of the key electric car market data and growth projections.
- According to MarketsandMarkets, the global market for electric vehicle charging stations is expected to increase from 2,354 thousand units in 2022 to 16,623 thousand units in 2027 by growing at a CAGR of 44.1%.
- As per Mordor Intelligence, the worldwide electric vehicle charging station market was worth USD 5.86 billion in 2022. It is predicted to be worth USD 53.25 billion by 2028.
- As per EV Box, global electric vehicle sales are estimated to exceed 12.2 million by 2025. And by 2030, it’s predicted that 58 percent of global passenger vehicle sales will come from EVs.
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These industry figures illustrate that electric vehicles are growing at a rapid rate. The drivers of the trend are the demand for zero-emission transportation and the government’s measures to assist zero-emission vehicles through subsidies, tax refunds, and other means.
Business Models of EV Charging Station Finder App
After creating an EV charging station finder app, you’ll be looking for ways to make money.
In general, EV charging station locator apps make revenue through membership fees, advertisements, transaction commissions, and more. Let’s discuss them in detail.
Membership Fee
It’s a very basic business model where you charge your users for the services you provide. You can provide monthly, quarterly, or annual plans to users. It will help you to generate a consistent stream of revenue. You can also provide some discounts on your annual plan in comparison to monthly plans to attract users.
Advertisement
You can allow affiliates to use your app to display promotional content or adverts. There are various forms of advertisements you can integrate into the app. These include in-apps, pop-ups, sidebars, videos, etc.
Many EV charging station finder apps do not charge users anything to use them; instead, they display advertisements and rely on advertising money to fund their operations.
Besides the above two, there are other popular mobile app monetization methods that you can integrate into your EV charging station finder app.
Main Features of an EV Charging Station Finder App
It is essential to list-out features before developing an app to avoid the regular enhancements after launching an app. Check out the must-have features to include in your app here:
1. Registration / Sign Up
A new user should sign up using their email address, phone number, and password to utilize an app. Moreover, you can allow users to sign up using their social media accounts, such as Gmail or Facebook.
2. User Profile
Users can alter and change their profiles. For example, they can include photographs in their profile, the vehicle’s number and model, and their name.
3. Geolocation
With this feature, users can access their smartphones in real-time to display the closest charging stations. In addition, users can manually search for charging stations in a given area by entering the address and seeing what possibilities are available.
4. Filters
Advanced filter options allow users to search based on their inputs. They employ several parameters to discover a quality service and save time for an electric car charging station.
5. Station Details
The app should display important information about the specific charging stations while searching nearby EV charging stations. This information can contain the station’s name, compatible car types, pricing, address, images, reviews, and ratings, among other things. It will make it easier for people to charge at their favorite location.
6. Charging Slot Booking
The app should allow users to book a time slot for charging their cars in advance.
7. Users Rating and Review
After charging a user’s electric vehicle, they can rate the charging station based on their experience. It’s an essential characteristic for a brand because it improves the quality of service and other aspects of a charging station.
8. Various Payment Options
You should integrate different payment gateways in your app based on your country or location. Allow your users to choose from various payment gateways in your app. These approaches allow them to apply whenever it is convenient for them. For example, users can use eWallets, UPI, PayPal, a debit or credit card, etc., to pay.
9. Billing History
Users can look into their billing history, the amount of energy they used, and the cost they’ll have to pay daily, weekly, or monthly. The billing history function allows customers to keep track of their bookings, including the amount of energy used and how much they paid.
10. Push Notification
Users can receive notifications or cautions about local charging stations and reminders of future bookings, new entry offers, and more via the EV charging station finder app.
11. AI-Powered Chatbot
Chatbots powered by artificial intelligence can provide quick service and answer users’ questions anytime they need it. They can also pass on the unanswerable questions to the team that deals with them.
12. Bonus Points
Users who use these apps regularly get bonus points in promotional vouchers, coupons, free memberships, and perks. These incentives can be used to boost user retention and attract users to your services.
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Technology Stack for EV Charging Station Finder App
After choosing features, you must define the technologies to use for particular functions of your EV charging station locator app. Implement the following tech stack for effortless use of your app.
| Function | Technology |
|---|---|
| Push Notifications | Twilio, Push, Amazon SNS, Urban Airship, Firebase Cloud Messaging. |
| Payments | Braintree & PayPal, Stripe, EWallets |
| Server | NGINX, Apache |
| Find user Location | Google Maps, Core Location Framework, Google Places API |
| Backend | Flutter, Laravel, Node.js |
| Cloud services | AWS, Google, Azure, AWS, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and VULTR |
| Verify Mobile No. | Twilio, Nexmo |
| Analytics | Kafka, Spark, Flink, Hadoop, BigData, Hadoop |
| Database | Postgres & MySQL |
| Frontend | React Native, Flutter, Java/Kotlin, Swift |
How Much Does it Cost to Develop an EV Charging Station Finder App?
In general, the total cost of app development is influenced by several important factors. These include the application’s complexity, features, the platform you choose (Android, iOS, or both), and the app development company’s location.
When we bring all of these criteria together for cost estimates, we find that the basic app development will cost between $10,000 to $15,000. However, the cost of building a basic to medium-sized EV charging station finder app will be between $16,000 to $30,000.
Lastly, the cost of developing a complex EV charging station locator mobile app would be around $30,000 or more.
The type of app you want to develop will vary depending on the ultimate business needs. To know how the cost of an app is estimated, refer to this blog on app development cost.
Final Words
With rising awareness of electric vehicles there will be great demand for charging stations and so the station locator apps. If you’re interested in creating an EV charging station finder app, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.
Guru TechnoLabs is an award-winning mobile app development company. We can create an EV charging station finder app depending on your business needs and target audience efficiently.
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