Workplace Charging Made Simple With ampUp

Last year was monumental for electric vehicles. We saw a squashing of Tesla skeptics, and we saw the auto industry take a more serious approach to producing attractive EV models. With electric vehicle sales growing globally, education continues to be at the heart of EV adoption and will continue to be important for 2020.

Thankfully, current EV drivers have been vocal and willing to inform their companies and municipalities about all of their charging and range needs. Most of us are seeing changes as our office parking spots turn into charge stations, or yet another neighbor makes their next car purchase electric.

Managed Charging — The New Normal

Sometimes questions arise for business owners who want to offer EV charging at the office. How do I manage user access? How do I limit charging times? How do I know my chargers work with my employees’ cars? These are questions first-time buyers of charging stations are asking, but the answers are not clear or easy. There is a solution with ampUp*, the Y Combinator-backed startup enabling drivers and site hosts to solve many electric vehicle charging complexities.

“Electric vehicle chargers are proliferating where people spend the most time — at the workplace, home, and private campuses. It is the new norm,” says ampUp CEO Thomas Sun. “A workplace will install multiple chargers, but they face challenges of access, scheduling, demand overflow on weekdays, and dormant activity on the weekends. Some EV drivers will give up on trying to charge at work. Others will use email or text to coordinate charging. For these reasons, ampUp is giving charging station owners and their EV drivers the tools needed to manage these functions in one place.”

A Software-First Approach

The software layer is the most interactive aspect of the EV charging experience — such as charger search, payments and data management. These are core features EV customers are comfortable with today and expect in the apps they rely on.

For businesses, ampUp is reducing EV skepticism by acting as both an EV charging advisor and solution provider to customers. Charging partners and a customized user experience gives customers flexibility to solve their specific needs. “EV charging software can be grouped into infrastructure and community management,” says Sun. Infrastructure management includes software to hardware communications and control. Many players in the EV charging space already do a great job at infrastructure management. ampUp’s unique focus is on community management, which is all about the EV charging experience for both site hosts and drivers. Some of the community management features include:

• Smart Scheduling
• Access Control
• Driver notifications and opt-in
• Pricing & Payments
• Analytics & Monitoring

The startup isn’t alone in their pursuit to build a robust EV charging network supported by charging management software. Oil giants like Shell and Total have been on an EV-investing spree the past few years, while incumbent charging companies are doubling down on a mobile-friendly approach.

As the new decade kicks off, everyone expects their devices to be smart, easy to use, and controllable. It’s the benchmark set by many industries, and EV charging is no different. Feature-abundant software and a reliable user experience complements the rapid charge station growth while waving the EV adoption flag.

ampUp is developing new features to be released over the next few months, and you can learn more about ampUp’s charging management solution by visiting its website or connecting with its team directly.

*This article was sponsored by ampUp. Images provided by the company and used with permission.