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Dynamic charging stops

Feature Requests

I would really welcome “dynamic” charging stops. When I travel for a long trip, I just want to add my destination and drive. I don’t want to plan all my stops ahead.

I’d prefer if the planner would show me always the next charging possibility along my route. Tell me if it is free, what is the cost, etc. At the same time I’d like the planer to tell me if I can make it to the next charging stop. How far it is, etc.

I want to be able to just jump into the car and drive and not to think about the next stop. I want to decide always ad-hoc during my trip. If the next stop is 20 km away I want the planer to tell me that. I can decide if it is the right time to take a break. If not, I just drive further and I know already, that the next possibility to charge is let’s say 70km away. So I have enough in the battery to skip the stop and drive further.

Posted by Julius Chrobak ·
7 comments

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Comments7

  • Johan (ABRP)

    Team•

    Jan 20

    Thanks for the feature request! We’ve seen a few different variations of this request previously, and it would be very helpful if you could provide some additional clarification to better understand your needs.

    1. We will never change planned charge stops without your explicit confirmation. The main reason is to avoid users having to second-guess whether their planned stops have changed unexpectedly. In cases where a charge session ends up being longer or shorter than planned and you want the route to adapt by selecting new optimal chargers, our current assumption is that the user would clear the plan and create a new one. Do you feel this is an acceptable and intuitive flow?

    2. I really like the idea of improving support for dynamic stops, but I’d appreciate some additional context on when and how you would find this functionality most useful.

      • Are you typically using ABRP actively for turn-by-turn navigation, or more in an ad-hoc manner (for example, opening ABRP occasionally to check optimal chargers along your route)?

      • If you are actively driving, are you using in-car navigation (CarPlay / Android Auto)?

      • In that case, would it be sufficient to present this information on the companion screen (phone), or would you prefer tighter integration directly into the car UI?

    • Julius Chrobak

      •

      Jan 20

      Thank you for taking some time to understand my suggestion!

      I’ll try to describe how I’d like to have it. At the beginning of my journey I just enter the destination. The ABRP calculates the route but it does not plan any specific charge stops! This is the main point of my suggestion. I don’t want to plan any specific charge stops, ever. ABRP should only calculate in the background roughly how much time I need to charge to reach the destination. When I start the turn-by-turn navigation, the ABRP should show me the route, the time to drive, time to charge and show me the next 2 or 3 chargers along my journey (according to my preferences). If possible it should show me some details on those chargers (number of stalls, price, network, current occupancy, etc.).

      So, let's say I start the turn-by-turn navigation. The ABRP shows me two next chargers (A) in 10km and (B) in 50km along my journey. So I just drive. As I approach the charger (A) I will decide if I want to stop, depending on many factors (remaining range, hunger, tiredness, etc.). When I pass the charger (A), the ABRP remove (A) from the list, puts (B) on the first place and shows charger (C) in 70km on the second place. Every time I approach a charger I'll decide if I want to stop. So I might not stop at (B) because I already see that charger (C) is only 30km away. So I might decide to stop at the (C) charger. And so on... In other words, no stops are planned up front. I just get the real time information about the next 2 or 3 chargers along my journey and I decide where to stop. If I pass a charger the list gets updated. The ABRP does not even need to know my current consumption and range. Just tell me how far away the chargers are. I'm the driver and I'll decide when and where I stop. Exactly as I'd drive an ICE car.

      I currently use ABRP only in an ad-hoc manner. Just to see where the stops are, how much time I need charge for a some journey. But I use the car's built in navigation, which works really well (Ford Mustang Mach-E) but unfortunately also plans my stops ahead :(. I'd definitely start using the ABRP turn-by-turn navigation through the carplay, if this kind of navigation would be implemented.

      • Johan (ABRP)

        Team•

        Jan 23

        Thanks for the clarification! You should be able to mimic the "no stops planned upfront" behavior by setting a really low reference consumption when having a vehicle with large battery selected (we have a limit for what we consider reasonable, but this could be updated). It won't give you an estimated charge time, but that would require larger changes within the app to support.

        I really like the proposal for an easier overview of possible charge stops along the route. We've heard similar suggestions before and I'll raise it with the team to see if we can find a good way to support it.

    • Henri Palmroth

      •

      Jan 25

      1. This kind of makes sense after you have used ABRP for some time and got the grip of the logic. However as a new user it was confusing to see red dotted line if you have continued a bit further from planned charger.

        Ultimately the user value is to get as fast as possible from A to B and optimize charging stops for the route. Yet user wants to make final choices when and where to stop. Currently user is on control but have to actively ask for options instead of getting them from the app.

        Additionally I feel like recalculation is the same as starting a new trip. I would like to be on that same trip all to time and be able to see how much off I am from the original “optimal” plan.

      2. My use case is turn-by-turn. Being able to see when is current estimated arrival time and seeing the trip progress on big map from start to finish.

        CarPlay. Ideally I would like to see my options on car screen but phone screen is also possible if it is somehow easier. Like a button which idea is “I want to have a stop in next 15 minutes. Show my options and how they affect the plan.”

  • Henri Palmroth

    •

    Jan 9

    Just started to use ABRP. And this is the biggest annoyance. Life happens. Kids eat longer and you charge 30 % more than you planned. ABRP should update the plan automatically to reflect this new situation.

    • Julius Chrobak

      •

      Jan 10

      Definitely. I often charge more than planed. On a long trip we also switch. Each leg might drive another person. This impacts the consumption. So planing everything up front is almost impossible. People get tired. They might want to stop a switch sooner or the other way around, drive 30 minutes more if possible. What also happens is that the chargers are full. So in that case we just want to drive to the next charge. Ideally I see this before I get of the highway.

      So I would really like to see this feature and enjoy just driving the car.

  • ABRP User #811399

    •

    Jan 6

    This would be particularly useful if you could set filters that qualify the charging station (for example: dog friendly + restroom or only 150+ kW). I think the display would need to show something like [Next chargers: 25 km & 125 km] to enable you to make a call on skipping the nearest one. It would be good if there was also something (an icon or color) that let you know that there were closer chargers that were eliminated by the filter and a “find me the closest charger” button (although it would be good if that could have a filter for things like speed & network that was used if a matching charger could be found, otherwise it would revert to any charger at all within range).