I was using my phone today, and I realized that I have so many apps for the different charging networks. It’s probably a pipe dream, but a federated database of all known charging infrastructure would be great. Each network could still use their own systems, but push out statuses, locations, and details through ActivityPub. It would also mean that folks can build their own apps on top of this data, allowing for some competition against Plugshare and ABRP. I’m sure that scraping and gathering data is a big impediment there.
Anyway, not sure where I’m going with this. But just a shower thought that I had yesterday.
Can you just pull up the the machine, pay by debit/credit then go about your day? I don’t always bring my phone with me, and I most certainly won’t get accounts for however many charging companies there are. This among a bunch of other reasons are why I will never consider an electric only car
Only at some chargers, which I agree is a huge problem/annoyance. I think it’s more streamlined in Europe. I bet we won’t see a change in the US without federal legislation requiring simple credit card payment.