ChargePoint is spending tens of millions to spice up station reliability to ‘almost one hundred pc’

ChargePoint, which payments itself because the world’s “largest and most open” charging community for electrical autos, is asserting a sequence of recent initiatives to enhance the reliability of its 245,000-strong community of chargers. “We count on these multimillion greenback investments to ship community reliability of almost one hundred pc as soon as totally applied,” the corporate writes in a press launch.

The announcement comes as US drivers of electrical autos proceed to have points discovering dependable locations to cost their vehicles when away from house. One examine from final 12 months discovered that one in 5 respondents weren’t capable of cost their car after arriving at a station, with the bulk blaming chargers which might be malfunctioning or out of service.

To attain its reliability purpose, ChargePoint is establishing a brand new Community Operations Heart that may draw from “a number of massive information feeds” in an try to reply rapidly to points with its chargers, and even spot issues earlier than they come up utilizing predictive analytics. It’s additionally making modifications to its app to supply extra visibility concerning the standing and readiness of charging stations, and permit customers to supply suggestions on points like vandalism. 

Lastly, ChargePoint can be introducing a brand new decommissioning course of to incentivize landlords who’re not fascinated about internet hosting their public chargers to offer them up for ChargePoint to repurpose. The hope is that this can scale back confusion for drivers who can see a charging station in the actual world that’s not accessible to be used or listed within the app. 

Earlier this 12 months, rival charging community EVgo introduced a program of its personal to enhance the reliability of its community. Its ReNew program goals to exchange, improve, or retire a whole bunch of the corporate’s chargers over the course of 2023.