Juice, a new startup, has announced a partnership with Revel, a New York-based ride-hailing and fast-charging provider, to simplify the pain points of using public charging networks for electric vehicles, using smart cameras and machine learning.
Although much has improved in recent years, charging electric car batteries using chargers found in the wild is still a confusing and sometimes overly complicated task.
Many payment methods require you to create an account, either through a browser or by downloading a smartphone app, despite the growing popularity of the tap-to-pay option.
Either way, it’s still not the seamless experience Tesla customers have long enjoyed on the Supercharger network. That process involves saving payment methods to an account in the car’s infotainment system, meaning the owner can enjoy the convenience of simply plugging in, charging, and driving away, knowing that the bill and cost breakdown will arrive each month.
Juice and Revel want to change all that by creating what they’re calling “Face ID for vehicles.” By harnessing the power of computer vision, which uses AI-powered smart cameras, the company wants EV charging stations to recognize a vehicle, along with its license plate, authenticate it, and then automatically charge the cost of a charging session to an associated account.
“Our goal is not to create a long-term experience where we’re forced to download an app and use that app every time,” said Paul Suhey, co-founder and chief operating officer at Revel. The Edge in a recent interview. “We just try to make the experience as easy as possible.”
Granted, the owner of the EV in question will have to scan an initial QR code to sign up, then grant Juice permission to record some video of the vehicle via a smartphone camera. But from there, it’s simply a matter of selecting a payment method and leaving your smartphone in your pocket when you pull up to a Revel booth.
Revel says it can then use existing security camera technology, along with machine learning, to recognize the electric car and then automatically charge the account holder when the charging session is complete, eliminating some of the annoying registration and payment steps that currently plague much of the public network.
Analysis: Like Amazon Go for electric vehicle charging
In fact, the public charging network is still a bit of a mess. The lack of a single service provider (Tesla not included) means that multiple accounts often need to be set up to cover a significant journey, despite the work done by numerous EV manufacturers to make the process smoother.
Unlike paying for diesel or petrol, there are no cashiers at public charging stations and the software that manages the charging stations is often unreliable, glitchy or even completely broken.
Companies like Kia, Nissan, Polestar and BMW now all offer a subscription model, where the user creates an account (complete with billing information) and then uses an RFID card. This can be used with an app at various charging points in a handful of networks. At the end of the month, the owner receives a final bill.
Mercedes-Benz similarly offers the possibility to pay from the car (like Tesla) thanks to the Mercedes me Charge system. This system communicates with more than 1.6 million charging points worldwide and automatically charges the user with the costs.
These are all steps in the right direction, but the process remains fraught with problems, the main one being that not all public charging networks are included in any of these packages. There are simply too many to consolidate them all.
Juice has essentially created the Amazon Go of EV charging here, with AI-powered smart cameras automatically detecting a user’s activity and charging their account accordingly. But it still only works on the Revel network – or at least on those who will be using the technology.
Over the course of an EV owner’s lifetime, they’ll likely encounter hundreds of different public charging providers, some more obscure than others, especially if you venture off the beaten path. After all, if the vehicle has as little as four percent battery left, the driver will head to the charging option that’s closest or most convenient.
The situation is improving and a handful of large service providers now dominate the charging landscape, while more and more charging stations only require a credit or debit card.
But if electric vehicles are to be anywhere near equal to their combustion-engined brethren, all aspects of range anxiety must be eliminated. This includes the ability to charge anywhere, anytime, without additional payment steps or complications.
When was the last time you planned a road trip with specific gas stations?