EVRoamer #3 - the newsletter from the EVRoaming Foundation


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February 2022

EVRoamer

Welcome to the EVRoamer, the newsletter of the EVRoaming Foundation!

The mission of the EVRoaming Foundation is to achieve full EV roaming for everyone in an open and transparent manner, with correct information sharing according in line with all consumer laws. We aim to ensure cross border access to charge infra networks and help companies and governments with the right information to achieve this.

Together with you we aim to improving access to charging infrastructure, and to realize better services and for EV drivers.

Michel Bayings Director eMobility Consulting & Development Manager + Operational support EVRoaming Foundation

Dear EV Roamers,

What a great year we have had regarding all movements in the Electric Mobility market! Yes, Covid disturbed a lot especially for private situations, although also the lock downs made it sometimes hard to do business where physical meeting can be very helpful to make progress.

The EVRoaming foundation kept on going. We did not stop as we are working with a lot of great and enthusiastic Contributors to make EV charging infrastructure better accessible for EV drivers, by offering them better information and make it easier to connect networks with each other. A few of the achievements from last year:

We contributed to legislation in USA, UK and Europe
We participate different workgroups from Sustainable Transport Forum in Europe
Presentations about roaming, price transparency and charge infra accessibility have been given in different countries across the world
We released and published OCPI v2.2.1, more about this further in this newsletter
We published our Business Use Cases for OCPI v.3.0, you can read more about further in this newsletter
We started a roaming agreement pool to make it easier to setup agreement between parties
And the EVRoaming Foundation doubled in members/contributors

Electric Vehicles are coming rapidly on the market and charging infrastructure is lacking behind. So we have a lot to do. This year we will focus on the following areas (among other things): Security, Logistic support in OCPI, more efficient way to use OCPI, more attention for difference in static and dynamic date, 15118 support, implementation and test tools, Legislation support on global level. And as always we do it with the EV driver in mind.

If you are not doing it yet, please join us and become a Contributor of the EVRoaming Foundation. Let’s work together to a better charge infrastructure network.

OCPI update

The latest version OCPI 2.2.1

OCPI v2.2.1 was released and published last year. This is replacing v2.2 which is no longer supported anymore. A few major improvements have been made, while we tried to keep the impact for implementations small. A few of the improvements:

Data length for signed data field for CDR is changed to be in line with OCPP and usable for calibration checks
Home Charging Compensation field (optional) is added to CDRs to support payment by company of energy charged at home
Connector ID is added for better support of remote start/stop
Many connector types have been added for better support of American, Canada and Asian market.

At the EVRoaming website you can find a complete overview with all improvements and download OCPI v2.2.1 for free OCPI Downloads | EVRoaming Foundation.

OCPI v3.0 Roadmap and Business Use Cases

OCPI moves forward and the EVRoaming Foundation and its contributors work very hard on OCPI v3.0. This will be a major update, besides new and improved services we also are working hard to make it more secure and more efficient to deal with large amounts of data.

We released last year the OCPI v3.0 Business Use Cases which is the bases for v3.0
End 2022 / early 2023 we aim to have a first draft version available
End 2023 a final OCPI v3.0 should be available
If possible new/improved services will be available sooner.

A few of the improvements and changes in 3.0:

Better support for dynamic data changes vs static data changes
More secure message system
Support for Trucks and large vehicles to easier identify good usable charge points
CDR statuses to support better quality of charge data records
Full Plug & Charge support (incl. 15118-20 certificates)
MSP tariff exchange to CPO for usage on displays
Support for loyalty
Meter data for DSO support
And many other features and improvements

You can download the Business Use Cases for OCPI v3.0 via the website: OCPI Downloads | EVRoaming Foundation

Besides the OCPI activities, the EVRoaming Foundation will also setup a good Roaming Agreement system for faster and easier connection between parties, and a testing service for OCPI implementations.

EVRoaming Foundation is also very active to support countries and the EU with legislation to ensure open connected charge networks with transparent correct understandable information towards EV drivers.

Stories from contributors

EVA Global | The Leading EV Customer Solution Provider

What is your role in the EV ecosystem?
EVA Global is a leading EV Customer Solutions Provider that is headquartered in Finland with locations in Spain and the Netherlands. Guided by our Never Stranded Philosophy since our foundation in 2017, EVA is fully dedicated to eMobility and provides end-to-end operational solutions to our eMobility partners. These technical and specialised services include hotline services in more than 24 languages, EV network management through active monitoring, troubleshooting and maintenance, Webcare services and much more. Our partners include a wide range of eMobility actors that are located across Europe, Asia and the United States. EVA currently assists more than 100,000 EV driver cases a month and our team of multilingual EV Specialists are available 24/7, 365 days a year.

Why is roaming and/or OCPI important for that?
Roaming is important to drivers that contact us, drivers that need our help when charging is not working as they are expecting. For EVA, OCPI is a very useful protocol to integrate with our customers: CPOs. Our EV Specialists use our bespoke software platform to help drivers. This platform connects to CPOs via OCPI: standard OCPI optionally extended with some custom modules to provide a bit more functionality to the EV Specialists like: Reset.

Why did you join the EVRoaming Foundation?
EVA Global is dedicated to accelerating the adoption of eMobility from the front lines by improving mobility services directly through the Voice of the Driver and our Never Stranded philosophy. This collaborative effort designed by the EVRoaming Foundation is in complete sync with EVA Global’s mission for open and collaborative partnerships throughout the eMobility ecosystem for a continuously developed and improved electric transport system. EVA has a different role in this ecosystem; we seek to bring our specific experience and help improve OCPI.

Anything else you want to tell the app 550 subscribers of the EVRoaming Foundation newsletter
EVA Global is thrilled to have joined the EVRoaming Foundation. We look forward to contributing to this collaboration for a connected eMobility ecosystem dedicated to placing the EV driver experience at its centre. We welcome all partnerships for this purpose and look forward to working closely with all members of EVRoaming. We are pleased to introduce our services below and welcome you to reach out at any time!

EVA Assists – EV Driver Support
Provides 24/7 access to our specialized technical EV support team committed to solving customer issues at the charge point and beyond. Your customers will be able to reach you on any channel of their choice in more than 24 languages.

EVA Webcare - eMobility Apps/Maps & Social Media
Offers round the clock customer support and advice in more than 24 languages, including choosing and using the right authentication methods, and monitoring our client's online presence on major social media channels and eMobility maps

EVA Assures - Infrastructure Management
Maximizes charger uptime and availability by streamlining operations and monitoring the status of your infrastructure 24/7. Acting from an immediate automated alarm, our team is ready to troubleshoot any charger malfunction and when necessary, escalate a workorder for onsite resolution.

EVA Analytics – Voice of the Driver
A data-driven customer engagement model that is based on knowledge capital and insights from curated data sets collected across a combined network serving more than 1.75M EV drivers. This serves to help you deploy and scale charging services, standardize and gain time-to-market as well as leverage information and resources across our ecosystem.

EVA Academy – eMobility Training Programmes
The EVA Academy offers in depth EV educational programmes covering all areas of emobility expertise and nuances.

Stories from contributors

DCS | Digital Charging Solutions

What is your role in the EV ecosystem?
At Digital Charging Solutions GmbH, we consider ourselves the partner and link between OEMs, fleet managers, Charge Point Operators (CPOs) , public utilities, municipalities and EV drivers. In this ecosystem we provide cross-border charging solutions to give access to Europe's largest charging network in 29 countries. Our white label services cover multiple networks of CPOs and enable drivers of EVs to find, use and pay for public charging quickly and seamlessly. This makes DCS one of the world’s most important drivers of the transition to electromobility.

Why is roaming and/or OCPI important for that?
We offer public charging across Europe but do not operate any charging stations. Our drivers are always roaming when they are charging.

While we are also using the major roaming platforms with their specific protocols to achieve this European coverage, we have a direct connection using OCPI with many of our main CPO partners. At charging stations connected with OCPI, we can offer an even higher quality and additional features.

Why did you join the EVRoaming Foundation?
The driver experience is at the core of our business. We want to improve the experience of our drivers by contributing to the further technical development of roaming in Europe.

The user experience is defined by data exchange between the driver, the MSP (DCS) and the CPO. This data exchange is defined in the roaming protocols. And the OCPI protocol is the only open roaming protocol where we can actively contribute to its improvement.

Hence, we have joined the EVRoaming Foundation because we want to contribute to the development of the OCPI protocol. With our strong ties to the car manufacturers we think we can add valuable input.

Anything else you want to tell the app 550 subscribers of the EVRoaming Foundation newsletter?
The future is electric! We believe it is crucial for all parties involved in the transition to jointly work on easy-to-use and worldwide accessible electric mobility. Roaming and convenient user experience at the charging point are particularly important aspects. They are key drivers to raise acceptance for a sustainable mobility change worldwide. We have already accomplished a lot to make charging a much more digital experience than fueling. Continuing on our path, we can jointly make charging seamless and frictionless for any EV driver.

Collaboration space

The EVRoaming foundation has chosen Slack as main workspace and communication tool. The OCPI Slack community will stay for the released versions of OCPI and for basic support. The new EVRoaming Slack community is only available for contributors and sponsors and will be used for all activities of the foundation.

Values and Goals of EVRoaming Foundation

The objective of the EVRoaming Foundation is to facilitate roaming services for charging electric vehicles and provide transparent information to consumers about charging locations and prices, by use of the open and independent Open Charge Point Interface (OCPI) protocol. The ultimate goal is to allow any EV driver to charge at any charging station in the on their continent: simplify, standardize and harmonize.

The EVRoaming Foundation will do this via the following activities:

Informing CPO’s, MSP’s, Governments and other parties about the importance of open access to charge infrastructure and right information sharing with EV drivers
Policy influencing via whitepapers, discussions with policy makers, etc
Creating informative webinars
Contributing to and participating with EU and other projects
Acting as independent knowledge center for all stakeholders
The EVRoaming Foundation also manages and maintains the OCPI protocol and ensure its free availability. The foundation is not limited to OCPI and can also support other related activities and services.

We see a lot of interest in getting more and better and open access to charge infrastructure. Meanwhile we see also more focus on price transparency, correct meter values and connections of networks to National Access Points. The EVRoaming foundation supports this together with its contributors and sponsors.

OCPI will stay free to use! And the OCPI community will stay, for basic support.

At the end of this newsletter you find an attractive introduction offer to join the EVRoaming foundation.

How to join?

There are 4 levels for participation:

Associate Contributor: Organisation that wishes to be connected to the protocols managed by the EVRoaming Foundation, but is not actively involved in protocol development. These may include Associations, Consultancies or Academic institutes.
Full Contributor: Organisation that implements the protocols managed by the EVRoaming Foundation and is actively involved in the development, maintenance and support of the protocols or actively participates in activities of working groups.
Managing Contributor: Full Contributor who has the right to appoint a board member from his/her organisation. For this elections will take place.
Sponsors: Organisation (in the public or private sector) that supports EVRoaming and the protocols managed by the EVRoaming Foundation, but is not actively involved in protocol development. These may include municipalities, research or consulting groups, laboratories, regulatory bodies or universities.

You can download, sign and return the Contributor agreement here:

CONTRIBUTOR AGREEMENT

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The EVRoaming Foundation manages and maintains the OCPI protocol and ensures its free availability, to guarantee roaming according to open standards for any EV driver.

www.evroaming.org Contact? Mail: info@evroaming.org

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This newsletter is the successor of the OCPI news letter, which you received previously.
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