INCAR – Interoperability, Charging and Parking Platform

What is it?

INCAR is the interoperability, charging and parking platform providing roaming and barrier-free access to EV charging points and offering related innovative integrated services for the EV drivers. It integrates the most suitable solutions studied in INFRA in terms of roaming, currency exchange and cyber security and protection.

The INCAR platform main objective is solving currently faced challenges in terms of interoperability among the different actors of the electromobility domain: Charge Point Operators (CPOs), micro-CPOs, e-Mobility Service Providers (EMSPs) and EV drivers. Additionally, in order to unleash new business models and facilitate the deployment of electromobility, the INCAR Platform embraces additional actors, such as micro-CPOs (small entities that can rely on the INCAR Platform to manage their charge points and offer them to the USER-CHI community of users) and casual EV drivers (drivers with no contractual relationship to any EMSP, willing to make use of the services offered by the parties integrated with the INCAR Platform).

The INCAR platform offers innovative integrated EV-related services such as interoperability and roaming, park & charge booking features, avoiding waiting times and increasing EV supply equipment (EVSE) usage, real-time information about publicly accessible EVSEs, searching and routing to EVSEs, and integration with route planning of e-fleets. These services are customised to different end users’ profiles and market segments to enrich the customer proposition.

INCAR aims at providing real-time relevant information through the platform to EMSPs and CPOs on transactions, energy supply and income for each charging point. CPOs will gain access to all the relevant details about the interoperability operations managed by the INCAR Platform and concerning their charge points. Moreover, INCAR Platform automates and tracks within a federated blockchain all the economic compensations among the involved partners, thus increasing the transparency and significantly reducing the workload of CPOs and EMSPs related to billing management.

Finally, the platform allows the publication of relevant data to Open Data portals, thus enabling further use and combination of the managed data by third parties, potentially in combination with data from other sources.

The INCAR app provides information such as the display of charging stations in a map, including current availability, the display of charging tariffs per station, the possibility to book a charging point, start and stop charging feature and the charging summary. For casual EV drivers, it is possible to pay through the app.

Where?

INCAR will be demonstrated in Barcelona, Berlin, Budapest, Rome and Turku.

For whom?

INCAR is designed for CPOs, micro-CPOs, EMSPs and EV drivers.

Timeline

What’s new with INCAR?

INCAR has been released on 31 May 2023 and is available in the various pilot sites.

INCAR is currently being tested in Barcelona and Berlin on different use cases. In Berlin, the objective is to make charging points in private premises available to any user. The goal is to optimise the use rate and turnover of the charging points installed in residential areas, therefore optimising the use of public space. The demonstration site, including two publicly accessible park-and-charge spots, is up and running. The participants will test the app and discover its advantages.

INCAR app is already available to download in App Store and Google Play in Spain, Italy and Germany and will be ready very soon in Finland and Hungary. The app is available in the following languages: Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Swedish, Finnish and Hungarian.

Google Play (Android): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vmzberlin.incar
App Store (iOs): https://apps.apple.com/de/app/incar/id1622185934

From September on, the end-user real tests will be taking place in Rome, Barcelona Metropolitan Area, Berlin, Turku and Budapest. A different use case approach will be followed in each city in order to test all the INCAR functionalities in different scenarios. In addition, the INCAR app is being integrated with the INSOC product in order to facilitate the management of the charge and park of e-bikes and e-kick scooters.

The Stakeholders Advisory Group provided valuable feedback and comments about INCAR at their last meeting. On the basis of the given feedback, further possibilities of distinguishing the INCAR app on the market and providing added value are being explored.

Related deliverables

D3.3: INCAR – Interoperability, Charging and Parking Platform development and lab-testing

Contact

Angel Moya – ETRA

amoya.etraid@grupoetra.com

Jasmin Rychlik – VMZ

jasmin.rychlik@vmzberlin.com