Bosch & HERE: Is rich navigation the most important feature of an EV?

Cars have moved on a lot from those iconic images of drivers looking at a paper map spread out on the hood of their vehicle.

Increasingly, navigation is becoming intrinsically linked to cars. And in the case of electric vehicles, charging cannot work without navigation because you need to be able to plan your trip in greater detail than ever before.

What we at Bosch and HERE are creating is a fully integrated electric car experience that has navigation at the heart of it. Because with an electric car's range and charging time, you need to know where and when to charge based on your driving behavior and other parameters such as weather that can affect your journey length.

From there, we can then start to integrate other aspects of the vehicle. For example, improving the link between the car's powertrain and navigation to improve range prediction, or thermal preconditioning of the battery to maximize charging speeds. Of course, there will be a continuous improvement in that user experience, but we've made big strides recently.

But there's still a long way to go from an industry point of view. If we look at the standardization of the infrastructure and payments, we're only at the beginning of the journey.

User experience is really critical when it comes to charging because, with an EV, you will probably charge it three to five times more often than you would refuel an internal combustion engine (ICE) car.

What's therefore crucial is the standardization or harmonization of charging infrastructure. With the Bosch charging service, for instance, we have more than 200,000 charging points across Europe that don't require the use of several different apps to access. This means you have a seamless, universal charging solution that basically simplifies EV ownership and brings it closer to the experience people are already used to with ICE cars.

This is all aimed at increasing the adoption of electric cars because charging is still seen as a hurdle. In order to really drive the adoption, car manufacturers have to provide a best-in-class charging solution with as much convenience as possible.

Central to this is location technology. Because, unlike an ICE car, the electric car charging network is not fully there yet. Routing to EV charging points needs to be very special and precise and based around the true range of the vehicle and where the nearest EV charging points are.

When arriving at the charging point, it's not enough to be guided to the supermarket car park, for example, but to the actual spot where the charge point is. Then it's important to know in advance if the charge point is available and if you can pre-book it from your car.

Another important element and differentiation from ICE cars are specific route information such as topography, weather, driving style and so on that could affect your vehicle's range and is based on location data.

With the Bosch-HERE Charging Solution, consumers can not only find all that information based on aggregated data that includes specific charging point information directly in the map, including connector type, voltage, pricing and other important attributes, but also access the charge point and perform the payment. When it comes to improving EV adoption and making future ownership experiences more pleasant and seamless, providing your customers with the richest and most precise route information could be the USP you need.