Enhancing the Charging Experience by leveraging Swarm Data

Has this happened to you before: You’re navigating to a charging station but as you arrive at the location, you realize that the position of the station is not 100% accurate? With swarm data, we can change that. 

Today’s navigation systems use Point of Interests (POI), to navigate a driver towards their destination, for example restaurants, parking lots or attractions. The POI is a dataset, which contains, among other information, its name, address and of course its geographic coordinates.

“At CARIAD, the POI Management brings together various data sources for Point of Interests, provides them to the navigation applications and continuously updates and improves the database”, explains Volker Remuß, Product Manager POI Management.

One team focuses specifically on Charging Point of Interests (cPOIs) and is responsible for the Charging Feedback solution.

The Charging Feedback

The Charging Feedback uses swarm data to improve information about charging stations, their availability and keep the POI database up to date: When a driver starts a charging session at a cPOI, the vehicle shares the exact location of the session with the POI Management database. The Charging Feedback can then validate the accuracy of the charging point or identify possible data improvements. The improved data is combined with the existing POI Management database and updated in the system.

“The Charging Feedback is currently focusing on the improvement of cPOI locations. Plans are to expand the product to more use cases over time, such as improved live plug availability, charging speed and opening times”, says Lucas Alvarez, Product Owner for the Charging Feedback.

So far, the location of around 78.000 charging points have been improved, enhancing the charging experience for Volkswagen, Audi, Škoda, CUPRA, Seat and Porsche drivers, including users of the respective brand smartphone apps like the My Porsche or MyAudi app.