Electric Meets Urban: Experiments on Charging Cars by the Digital Hub Mobility

Unfortunately, charging is a real "roadblock" on our way to user-friendly urban e-mobility and widespread adoption. Among others, these are the reasons:

1. There are too few charging stations.
   The number of electric cars in cities is rising, but charging stations aren’t keeping pace. Are more and more public charging points the solution? There is a chicken-and-egg problem with the expansion of charging infrastructure and more and more e-vehicles on the roads.
2. There is too little public space for charging points.
   Unfortunately, this means that the expansion of charging infrastructure is challenging. Space efficiency is a core goal for transport in big cities like Munich.
3. Operating charging stations is often not economical.
   At present, AC (alternating current) charging stations are often not profitable for those offering them. Sustainable business models are needed.
4. The availability of charging stations is not clear.
   Many users do not have their own wall box, especially in the city center. In the case of public stations, it is often not clear whether they are occupied and when they will be free again. Could we increase user-friendliness and ensure less parking space/charging station search traffic by making reservations possible?
5. Charging can be time-consuming.
   Both AC charging stations (about four hours charging time for 250 km range) and fast DC charging (about 30 minutes for the same range) require time to bridge if your office or home isn’t nearby. How can we use charging time wisely and make charging experiences pleasant?

Therefore, many conclude that e-charging is less attractive than refueling gas. Only the pioneers dare to make the switch to purely electric vehicles. Early adopters are more likely to accept issues with the public charging infrastructure and often have charging options at home or work.

In the future, urban users will be more reliant on public charging locations and need more options to get their batteries ready for the next drive. The goal: charging is easy and stations are nearby. The Digital Hub Mobility works with companies, cities, municipalities, start-ups, and citizens in the Munich Urban Colab to achieve just that.

The Digital Hub Mobility has launched several initiatives with its collaborations to take the status quo of charging to the next level, working closely with experts and citizens. It all started with the question, "What does the urban charging infrastructure of tomorrow look like?" The team's vision: a holistic charging experience that is fun and makes it easier for people relying on a vehicle to switch from traditional to e-cars.

In interdisciplinary teams and within six months, the participants develop solutions, conduct urban experiments or pilot projects, and generate findings - right in the local environment of citizens.

1. E-Pioneers Community

In the co-innovation format citizen mobility, the team closely involves citizens and (prospective) e-car drivers in the development. As the German government's "Master Plan for Charging Infrastructure" points out, those users’ requirements and needs are crucial for the acceptance and long-term success of e-mobility. With its community, the citizen mobility team uncovers potentials, e.g., through idea contests, online surveys, and feedback on conducted experiments.

2. Charging Together (“Miteinander Laden”)

An experiment that makes use of our common ground: With residents and employees of the Munich Urban Colab, the project partners asked themselves, 'How can we make the existing charging infrastructure accessible to more people in the city?'

Especially in the evenings, overnight, and on weekends, the charging points of an office building remain largely unused. During these times, residents can take advantage of them, especially those who don’t live in their own homes with an attached wall box. That’s why we made our charging stations at the Munich Urban Colab available to the neighborhood - and explored the potential of complementary user groups and their needs.