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OpenStreetMap gives you static data. But when charging, you almost always need dynamic data (current station availability, availability forecast, charging price

OpenStreetMap gives you static data. But when charging, you almost always need dynamic data (current station availability, availability forecast, charging prices...) even in the most basic use cases. And to get dynamic data you can't just fetch it from one operator. My employer's charging network (Digital Charging Solutions) has about 1450 technical charge point operators (those are the brands you see on the stations). Even just looking at the commercial charge point operators (those are less) you'd have to connect to hundreds. Ok, there are also roaming platforms that interconnect everything. But they exist to connect, so they are never going to give you this valuable data for free. And you'd still have to implement about a dozen API connections to get reliable status data for only Europe... Edit: AMA about charging stuff :) I don't handle the data connections etc but I know a bit

donalhunt 2y ago
Do you foresee consolidation occuring for access to the data? Having to install 10s of apps / consult multiple sources for charging prices (not all chargers present a price) is painful.
- carstenhag 2y ago
  I do see consolidation happening, but it doesn't have to do with data. Right now there are many EMP (eMobility Provider) in Europe, trying to get a piece of the cake. Scale of economics will make the big ones have an edge over the small ones, eventually only a few big ones will likely survive. Two examples: - If an EMP connects directly to a CPO (Charge Point Operator) they can avoid roaming platform fees, but it requires individual integration. This is only worth for very large CPO like Ionity. - An EMP has to sanitize and improve the raw chargepoint data they get from providers. Thousands of times CPOs have set their chargepoints to LatLng 0,0; have messed up lng and lat; have put their stations to Somalia's beach.
nine_k 2y ago
> only Europe I'd say "wow, even Euripe". I would expect the European market, even just within the EU, much more fragmented the in the US. I may be wrong though.
- carstenhag 2y ago
  This was only data stuff. Once you actually want to sell electricity in all european countries and properly invoice it for all private & business customer needs, you also get a large headache :)
Aachen 2y ago
I don't understand. You're saying there's too many operators to reasonably connect to. How do they currently do these live maps then? It seems to me that, somewhere, there is a URL (or whatever specification) which some central server then fetches and aggregates to show on their map (probably briefly caches, too). This specification of where to fetch the data from each charging point from could, per my understanding, be an OpenStreetMap tag just like other metadata that we can already add. A client can either connect to the (e.g.) 50 nearest points along the upcoming route directly, or a third party can do it and funnel the data back to the client, but the ground truth of which charge points there are and how to get their current status could be in OpenStreetMap rather than fragmented across various siloed map operators Edit: actually, even if that's not the case, it's still better to show "there is a charge point here with 2x 150 kW but I don't know the current status" than not having it at all. That's static information which OpenStreetMap already has. Even if the live info spec is too elaborate or divergent for an OSM metadata field, it would still make sense to show all the points OSM is aware of in one's application because it draws more people to one's app/website

donalhunt 2y ago

Do you foresee consolidation occuring for access to the data? Having to install 10s of apps / consult multiple sources for charging prices (not all chargers present a price) is painful.

carstenhag 2y ago
I do see consolidation happening, but it doesn't have to do with data. Right now there are many EMP (eMobility Provider) in Europe, trying to get a piece of the cake. Scale of economics will make the big ones have an edge over the small ones, eventually only a few big ones will likely survive. Two examples: - If an EMP connects directly to a CPO (Charge Point Operator) they can avoid roaming platform fees, but it requires individual integration. This is only worth for very large CPO like Ionity. - An EMP has to sanitize and improve the raw chargepoint data they get from providers. Thousands of times CPOs have set their chargepoints to LatLng 0,0; have messed up lng and lat; have put their stations to Somalia's beach.

nine_k 2y ago

> only Europe I'd say "wow, even Euripe". I would expect the European market, even just within the EU, much more fragmented the in the US. I may be wrong though.

carstenhag 2y ago
This was only data stuff. Once you actually want to sell electricity in all european countries and properly invoice it for all private & business customer needs, you also get a large headache :)

Aachen 2y ago

I don't understand. You're saying there's too many operators to reasonably connect to. How do they currently do these live maps then? It seems to me that, somewhere, there is a URL (or whatever specification) which some central server then fetches and aggregates to show on their map (probably briefly caches, too). This specification of where to fetch the data from each charging point from could, per my understanding, be an OpenStreetMap tag just like other metadata that we can already add. A client can either connect to the (e.g.) 50 nearest points along the upcoming route directly, or a third party can do it and funnel the data back to the client, but the ground truth of which charge points there are and how to get their current status could be in OpenStreetMap rather than fragmented across various siloed map operators Edit: actually, even if that's not the case, it's still better to show "there is a charge point here with 2x 150 kW but I don't know the current status" than not having it at all. That's static information which OpenStreetMap already has. Even if the live info spec is too elaborate or divergent for an OSM metadata field, it would still make sense to show all the points OSM is aware of in one's application because it draws more people to one's app/website