eCharge.io: Building Blockchain-Based EV Charging Infrastructure

The electric vehicle industry has come a long way in the last few years. It was once a distant dream to imagine our roads full of environmentally friendly e-vehicles, but that has begun to change thanks to improvements in battery technology and steadily decreasing manufacturing costs. According to market research by the International Energy Agency (IEA), there are projected to be some 200 million e-vehicles on the roads by 2030.

Meanwhile, a much more fast-paced revolution has been taking place recently with the advent of blockchain technology. Visionary entrepreneurs have been devising ways to disrupt seemingly every industry under the sun. However, there are still far too many blockchain projects are failing to address real-world problems with their development.

At eCharge.io, we aim to capitalize on both the blockchain and EV trends in order to play a meaningful role in combating climate change. To accomplish that, we are building an extensive network of EV charging stations that uses blockchain technology to coordinate efficient energy distribution and offer fast, secure transactions.

Our Mission at eCharge

Climate change is a big problem that is only going to grow bigger in the coming decades. For individuals who want to reduce their personal environmental footprint and contribute to reversing the climate change trend, purchasing an electric vehicle is a popular choice.

Moreover, it has just recently become economically feasible for middle class car buyers to purchase an EV instead of a traditionally cheaper gas burning vehicle, and we predict that prices will only continue to drop from here. Given that EVs have significantly lower cost of ownership, making the switch can be a smart decision whether you care about reducing your environmental impact or not.

As the popularity of electric vehicles continues to rise, demand for EV charging stations will follow suit. We want to be prepared for that demand by having eCharge.io stations in over 1,000 hotels by the end of this year.

It is our mission at eCharge.io to provide EV drivers with reliable access to charging stations at hotel parking lots across Europe. Hotels are the ideal location for charging stations because they can be easily found along highways and they give travelers the ability to charge their car batteries overnight, just as they would if they were at home.

We have a strong sense of urgency in developing this infrastructure. Having it in place will encourage faster and more widespread adoption of electric vehicles, pushing the sustainable movement forward. On top of that, we recognize that increasing demand will inevitably lead to more competitors in the EV charging space. We intend to be the leading EV charging company in Europe, and that makes building this infrastructure quickly all the more important.

How eCharge.io Is Building for the Future

At the present time, hotels don’t have a strong incentive to pay for charging stations in their parking lots. The demand simply isn’t high enough yet. With that being the case, eCharge.io is covering the upfront costs of installing charging stations. This enables hotels to list EV charging among their available amenities, giving them an edge in attracting EV drivers to stay with them as guests.

Upon installation of a charging station, hoteliers will be required to sign an agreement to use eCharge.io services exclusively at their location. In addition, they will pay a recurring rental fee for each charging station. Hotel guests who use the eCharge.io stations will then pay a 20€ surcharge for each use. We’ve designed profitable business model while also minimizing the risk for hoteliers and providing convenient services to guests — a win-win-win.

The network of eCharge.io stations will be managed through our smart blockchain-based energy flow management software. Eventually, this network can be made into a load equalizing smart grid that allows something we like to call ‘carbitrage’. Simply put, vehicles that are connected to eCharge.io stations will be able to profit by selling their excess energy to the grid during peak demand times while still ensuring that their batteries will be fully charged by the morning.

The eCharge.io App and Token Economics

Our investment in the future of the EV industry is made possible in good part because of blockchain technology’s crowdfunding feature — ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings). The ongoing eCharge.io ICO gets a lot of tokensales from allover the world.The funds raised from the ICO will enable us to install thousands of new charging stations across central Europe.

Investors in the ICO receive at least 1000 ECHG tokens — the native cryptocurrency of eCharge.io — for every 100 Euro they contribute. To reward early investors, eCharge.io is also offering bonuses throughout the ICO period.

ECHG Tokens will be used exclusively on the eCharge.io mobile application. The functionality of the app includes:

• Map view of all available eCharge.io stations that makes it easy to plan travel routes.
• Built-in ECHG wallet that enables users to easily buy tokens with credit cards, PayPal, and select cryptocurrencies.
• Pay for EV battery charging and receive payment for energy sold to the grid at peak times.

Once we have formed more partnerships with hotels, we also aim to offer hotel booking and other hotel/travel-related services in future updates of the app.

As a utility token, ECHG’s value will rise and fall according to the value of the entire eCharge.io ecosystem. There is a capped supply of 2,000,000,000 ECHG tokens — half of which are available during the ICO while the remaining tokens will be kept by eCharge.io to ensure adequate liquidity and to distribute via airdrops.

When an ECHG token is spent on the eCharge.io app, it does not return to us. Instead, it is “burnt” — a process in which cryptocurrencies are sent to an unspendable address that renders them permanently useless and removes them from the circulating supply.

Burning tokens is a strategy for creating scarcity of the token in order to increase its value, and it is a big reason why we’ve had such strong investor interest in ECHG tokens.

Blockchain: Our Competitive Edge

The current market leader in EV charging stations is a company called ChargePoint. With over 10 years in business and an estimated 41,000+ charging stations spread across Europe and North America, ChargePoint has a noteworthy head start over eCharge. It will take time for us to compete with ChargePoint’s sheer quantity of charging stations.

Other noteworthy major players in the European market are ‘ultra-fast’ electric vehicle charging networks such as Ionity and Ultra-E, which are projects backed by large car manufacturers such as BMW, Ford, Audi, and others. This type of network can provide a charging capacity up to 350 kW, which allows for the quickest charging time in the market today.

Despite the stiff competition we face, we think that our blockchain-based smart grid technology gives us the immediate advantage in quality and adaptability for the future. Instead of straining the energy grid when demand is high, the eCharge.io network will be an asset that provides extra supply at those times and passes on the profits to our customers.

We also believe that our mobile app, coupled with the ECHG token and ecosystem, will provide a user experience that will enhance the ease and convenience of using the eCharge.io network.

Another way that we set ourselves apart is in how we source the energy in our charging network. People often don’t realize that electric cars aren’t inherently 100% environmentally friendly, as the electricity they run on may still be generated from burning fossil fuels such as coal. At eCharge, we will use 100% green energy sources for our charging network, ensuring that our customers are maximally reducing their carbon footprint by using our service.

Looking Ahead

It’s exciting whenever you get the chance to work on cutting-edge technology in a developing industry. We are fortunate to be building something that combines blockchain technology and electric vehicles, two budding industries that we believe will have a positive disruptive effect on the world.

The contributions to our ICO so far are extremely encouraging, as they reaffirm that our mission is as meaningful to others as it is to us. When the sale concludes on April 14, 2018, our focus will be completely set towards building partnerships and charging stations at hotels across Europe.

Thanks for reading! If you like what we are doing at eCharge.io, please click away at the 👏 button and share this with your friends.

We also invite you to learn more about our project by reading the eCharge.io whitepaper.

If you have any thoughts or questions about the project, leave a response below. We’d love to hear from you!