A good year for electric charging

Back in January, we wondered if 2021 would be the ‘tipping point’ year for electric mobility. In that article, six experts from the USER-CHI project outlined what they believed 2021 would hold for electromobility and electric vehicle charging in their sectors. 

Indeed, 2021 has met expectations. The User-Chi team has completed its milestones, and we’d like to share our progress with you. 

We have created seven videos to show what challenges, particularities and solutions of User-Chi cities. We have been launching them since last April, publishing the last one last October. 

In June, USER-CHI hosted a session at the Eurocities Mobility Forum. Experts from Budapest, Berlin, Barcelona and Murcia, and industry representatives from VMZ, IPT and ETRA I+D intervened as part of the project. Side-sessions provided participants with information about three of our innovative USER-CHI solutions: the project’s charging point location planning tool CLICK, the Interoperability, charging and parking platform INCAR and the wireless charging solution INDUCAR. 

In the same month, we launched our ambitious peer learning programme and recruited 15 fellow cities. The USER-CHI community of practice is developed to learn, exchange and expand their e-Mobility plans based on the experience and lessons learned from the USER-CHI demonstrators. Since then, we have launched an online exchange platform and have organised already four cities focussed webinars, and one will follow in January. 

In July, the European Commission released its much-awaited FitFor55 climate package, laying out the legislative proposals needed to cut emissions by 55% by 2030 and make the Green Deal a reality. With 12 different pieces of potential legislation, the package was wide-reaching and historic.  

The Commission was pushing for alternative fuels infrastructure, such as electric vehicle charging points, deployed based on vehicle uptake across Europe. 

Further rules set to come into effect would aim to improve the user experience of electric vehicle charging, meeting desires expressed by EV users in USER-CHI’s analysis published in 2020. This includes provisions to make prices more straightforward and transparent, a wider roll-out of contactless payment options and the ability to create ad-hoc payments. 

In October, the e-mobility trade show MOVIELECTRICA in Murcia was the perfect opportunity to showcase the progress made by User-Chi so far. The event will be back in 2022. 

In the same month, User-Chi participated in the Civitas Conference in Aachen, which became an excellent opportunity to discuss our role in climate-neutral cities and chat about charging points and the electric mobility of the future. We also joined the virtual European Union Sustainable Energy Week fair, the Smart Energy Expo in Barcelona, and the Battery Innovation days. 

But User Chi is going beyond and launching a handbook on new generation of charging stations. In the Civitas Conference, we presented an introduction to the four stations envisaged to fulfil the needs and expectations of Electric Vehicle users!   

Intermodal Station   

• Urban Station   
• Highway Station   
• LEV Station 

In 2021, we also worked very hard to design and develop the USER-CHI products and to define the demonstration cases in the USER-CHI cities, all to be ready for their testing phase in 2022 

This is everything from our side for this year. We will keep working during 2022 to continue to unlock Europe’s e-mobility potential. We wish you all a wonderful electric new year. 

More details to come soon! 

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