Looks like Android first, then iOS to follow. Not sure if location restricted to begin with.
Google Maps 10.30 prepares to add new features for Electric Vehicles
Google Maps 10.30 prepares to add new features for Electric Vehicles
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We already have a universal payment system, it's called contactless credit or debit cards. Every other retailer in the world uses them - from huge companies, to market traders, petrol stations, even the man who came to clean my oven had one in his pocket.
I fail to see why the charging companies do not use this and insist on poorly built apps. It's almost as if they are trying to put people off.
I fail to see why the charging companies do not use this and insist on poorly built apps. It's almost as if they are trying to put people off.
Cynic alert...
Subscriptions - ongoing monthly charges that they hope will work in their favour.
Pre-payments/Top-ups - Your money in their account until you use it... then they'll auto topup and have even more of your money.
Contactless - Charging more because they can't sell your data.
They charge more for the convenience.
Eventually, there will be a standard handshake between car and charger where the car will pay for the charge with on-board "funds" that the driver has setup. All the gubbins are there to make it happen, you are literally creating a wired connection and car computers are capable of holding card IDs.
Maybe it will even be done through something like google pay for cars.
Mercedes already does this. Tesla does this with Superchargers.
You should just plug in and get a notification of cost on your phone.
All this subscription nonsense needs to die.
Maybe it will even be done through something like google pay for cars.
Mercedes already does this. Tesla does this with Superchargers.
You should just plug in and get a notification of cost on your phone.
All this subscription nonsense needs to die.
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
I agree. Contactless is good as far as it goes ...
Contactless (or anything similar) is going to leave me unable to pay, sooner or later. At least at a petrol station there is a human at the till and I can use contactless, cash, or any other card that I have in my wallet - only one of which is enabled for contactless
Much better for the "Pump" to talk to the car, figure out how I pay (credit on account / what Card to bill / central account like Mercedes Me etc.) and charge me, mean time start the charge immediately rather than wasting my time having to faff about with RFIDs or Contactless payment.
Jason71
Well-Known Member
The amount some of these companies charge per KW. and as car batteries get bigger pretty soon the we'll be hitting the £30 contactless limit for a charge!. you could probably do it already on a P100D at somewhere like Shell if you were masochistic enough to try.
Honestly this would be great if all public chargers worked the same way as Supercharging does.
I guess someone (or Tesla) need to build the infrastructure for this. Not sure how open Tesla would be to essentially making an API within their network for other public charging companies to use. The other companies need to get on board with it too, and if they are making more money from their subscription nonsense then they won't.
From what we can see with the current in-car system (and their reluctance to include Apple CarPlay, and Google Navigation), it doesnt look overly promising.
A lot of hurdles to cross before we get universally controlled, reliable, easy, cheap public charging, but I guess EVs are still in their infancy.
There is absolutely no need for this. Currently this is handled by your account, all the car does it tell the Tesla account how much it used.
It can do exactly the same to another account - some kind of universal equivalent for 3rd party chargers - or even separate accounts.
You do not need any kind of in-car specialised programming for this, just on the Tesla account side.
1. What network is the charger
2. Connect to the network and activate the charger
3. On end of session ping the account with amount used and provide payment details
It's all web based zero footprint services. Worst case you can activate the charge through the phone/in-car browser, but that would be a band-aid to a fully automated solution. All these companies should talk to each other without the owner getting involved.
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
Mercedes Me already does this (I have no knowledge of how widespread it is / how well it works, but the Mercedes blurbs says something like "All European chargers" ... so at least their plans are BIG
Sorry do you mean there's no need for CarPlay? I somewhat agree. While you can do most of the features of CarPlay within the Tesla system, there are a few things that CarPlay does that the Tesla system does not. I personally don't care that much about CarPlay, not a deal breaker for me. Was just using it as an example of Teslas reluctance to let other companies into their infrastucture. And although the ability for all public chargers to work like Superchargers is there, Tesla still have to let them in, even in a small way.
Rooster6655
Active Member
The idea of contactless to charge is fine but there are limitations on the payment integration that is why its been sketchy and initial progress was slow because taking a pre auth pending payment via contactless was new and I've not heard of it being used anywhere else as most of the time you know the total and then just pay it by contactless.
People expect contactless payments for everything now but to actually set it up for a scenario like EV charging where the total is unknown probably took some work and we should be thankful for the ones that have it.
People expect contactless payments for everything now but to actually set it up for a scenario like EV charging where the total is unknown probably took some work and we should be thankful for the ones that have it.
They do but they dont tell you you need a Polar card to do it!
You select Debit card first on screen, then you tap the polar card, then your debit/credit card last.
Like you, i just tapped my card and would not work so randomly tapped my Polar card which luckily i had, then my debit card and it worked
I think you are mixing up Polar and Polar Instant. Polar Instant is a higher cost but uses contactless only whilst Polar is a subscription card allowing free or low cast charging. (I think!)
No you don't need a Polar card for Contactless. It's strange way of doing things but this is how you do it if you only have a contactless card:
1. Tap the card on the larger RFID pad. Wait until it confirms
2. Tap the card on the smaller RFID contactless pad.
3. When the green tick appears and you select the charge cable you want to use, plug in the charger and it will start charging the car.
4. When finished charging, stop the carge, put the cable back and tap your card on the larger RFID pad again. Should confirm all is OK and give the cost you were just charged.
But sometimes it just doesn't work, i've had a few different errors on different occasions. When it does work, it's actually pretty good. 22p per kwh isn't excessive either.
It may be that for whatever reason the initial contactless tap doesn't work, and then by tapping your Polar card it starts working, but i've done several charges now with just a contactless card.
Polar Instant is like a Pay As You Go mobile phone. You top up your 'wallet' and then use the app to start charges from their charge points. There's no tapping of cards at all, it's all managed through the app.
Seems like the most expensive option - 25p/kWh for a 50kw charger. In comparison, from the same charger, it would be 22p/kwh for contactless (location dependant) or 15p/kwh if you pay their £8 per month subscription.
Honestly I wish Polar could just do the functionaility of the Polar Instant App (i.e. no silly tapping of RFID cards, waiting for the card to be POSTED to you...it's 2019 ffs., topping up wallets etc) but with the pricing structure of Polar Plus - subscription and then charge per kwh taken. It's so confusing and none of the options they have are actually ideal.
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Thanks for this. Wondered why it seemed odd that the only way i could get it to work was using my polar card (Im not paying the subsciption now as it expired) - will try this method
I also tried the Instant app but this would not work and kept getting errors on the app (Got a refund on that also)
Yeah the entire system is a bit unreliable. Sometimes tapping a card works, sometimes not. Sometimes you get nearly 50kw, sometimes only 30kw or so.
Maybe one day there will be good reliable public chargers for those of us who can’t charge at home!
SmartElectric
Active Member
The 3% surcharge for processing payments is one of the elements of this, when charging 20c/kWh that turns to 20.6c/kWh, so while that seems trivial, it is one of the elements.
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