Tipcharge Keeping Your Electric Car On The Go

While there are more and more electric car apps available, finding the one that fits best is becoming a daunting task. Here is a closer look at another contender, Tipcharge.

In our previous electric car app review, we covered a few already available, see Electric Car Apps You Shouldn’t Live Without In this article, we take a closer look at Tipcharge and its founding team. I interviewed Mikael Jensen, Graphic Designer and part of EverGreen about what Tipcharge is and how does it differentiate itself from other apps available.

NZ - Mikael, you tell me a little about Tipcharge?
MJ - Tipcharge is an Android app that makes it easier to find the nearest charging station. Its main features include; an EV charger finder that via a map displays charging stations all over the world. It will find the nearest charging stations, as well as search by address, and other features such as socket types and payment methods. It even goes as far as giving you how to get there, the best route and driving instructions.

You also have the possibility to add chargers and get a panorama view via the Google Street View, in order to facilitate finding one. Tipcharge also gives you different types of information, such as getting usage and charger reports.
You can also add charging station you find that are not on the map.

We are currently working on making it possible to start/stop charging.

NZ - Why did you guys start writing it? What was the impetus?
MJ - We are working on a project called Evergreen and within that project, we developed Tipcharge. Our intelligent charger, Evergreen is connected to our Tipcharge backend-system and makes it possible to view live data and usage reports.

So far, we haven’t seen a website, nor an app that gathers information on charging stations providers that is free. That was the main reason why we developed the app and the website.

NZ - What were your influences, if any?
MJ - My influences are mostly with graphic design and usability. We created the website and app from scratch, with the idea it should be simple to use and easy on the eyes. We are currently working on enriching it with many new features.

NZ - What is the difference with other players?
MJ – Well, other websites and apps have done a good job at collecting charging station information from providers all over the world. But we have our backend system that will allow users to see live usage reports and owners to see the charger reports. That is our strong point. Also our system will allow, for example municipalities to create more users on the go and have RFID cards as payment method available.

In the future it will be possible to see the status of charging stations on the map with icons showing different colors for availability and more. Other charging stations providers will be able in the future to integrate this feature into their chargers, while using our backend system.

NZ - Any final thoughts?
MJ - We are working on implementing APIs for other providers, so we can get at many charging stations on the map as possible.

While we are finding more and more intelligent apps on the market showing you not only where the next charging stations are, there is still plenty of room for evolutions. Tipcharge is a well integrated part of the EverGreen charging network, resting on a powerful backend system that should help electric car and plug-in hybrid drivers all over the world.