Charging electric vehicles autonomously using mobile chargers

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Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK

£1,323,940

July 31, 2021

March 31, 2022

To meet the UK government's Road to Zero target and its commitment that all new cars sold from 2030 must be electric, we need to consider day-to-day charging for those without off-street parking.

Charging an electric car at home is easy and convenient, but only for those with the space to do so. However, in dense urban populations, up to 60% of households do not have this facility.

While public charging infrastructure goes some way to address the needs of this group, it is not enough on its own. Even if every lamppost, in every city, is converted to an electric charging point, it would not be enough to provide easy and reliable charging options for every household.

We are proposing an innovative solution to provide a completely hands-off, autonomous service to customers that takes over all of their day-to-day charging needs.

The service will connect to each customer's car, using APIs that are readily available, and monitor its location, state of charge and odometer. With this data, we will build predictive models to understand when each car will need charging. As required, and typically at night, one of our mobile charging vehicles will visit the vehicle and charge it in place.

Each morning, our customers will wake up knowing that their car has enough charge for the day ahead.This project will demonstrate the feasibility of operating such a service in an urban environment; specifically Oxford.