Electric Car Apps You Shouldn’t Live Without

Electric Car Apps Galore. Browsing Google for electric car apps will yield a long list of results, some related, others not so much. Apple’s App Store is slightly better at sorting out relevant apps. Still, the best way to find which electric car apps work mostly relies on word-of-mouth.

ReCarGo. ReCarGo has to be my favorite app, next to PlugShare. ReCarGo is the one that finds all the professional and business charge stations around. It is feature intensive and lists more stations than almost any other apps. A great feature is the Check In, which lets you rate the facility. Map will guide you to your destination and also lists the charging stations, protocols and most importantly, if the station is in use or not. But... it has weaknesses, such as what do you do when there are no business charging stations? For that you need something else.

PlugShare. PlugShare, as its names implies finds you plugs that individuals are willing to share with you. It is a great app that uses the crowd-sourcing technique, where electric charging station owners upload the availability of their stations. It is a great complimentary app to have with ReCarGo since it might come in handy if your depleted battery pack happens to be in a place where business stations aren’t to be found.

Usually, having both will cover most, if all charging stations on the map. But... there is another app that wants to do it all.

AAA TripTik. One app that shows a lot of potential is AAA’s TripTik. The app is probably the most feature rich and should cover anyone’s needs. Combining the business and individual station sharing, TripTik also gives you what you’ve come to expect from AAA, namely Hotels, Restaurants, Points of Interests, as well as Gasoline stations. And yes, TripTik taps into your AAA account, if you happen to have one, which could be handy should you be stranded somewhere. You do know that some cities now have a quick recharge AAA truck, right?

ChargePoint. ChargePoint showed less stations than any of the above-mentioned apps. It is Coulomb Technologies’ and somewhat lags behind others.

CarStations. CarStations, also based on the crowd-sourced strategy, as PlugShare is an app that could easily replace PlugShare, eventually. On a personal note, I prefer how PlugShare feels and arranges information.

Essentially, it would be hard currently to depend solely on one app to find you all you need. AAA’s TripTik comes close, but it is reassuring to be backed up by other apps.

What about your pick? What and how do you use your electric car and plug-in hybrid apps? In the meantime, give these a try. You will find plenty of apps for electric cars but not all act the same way.