Since our inception in 2012, we’ve been committed to making the electric car experience joyful. We want drivers to have a carefree driving experience without the range anxiety and charger reliability issues experienced by early adopters. Our new brand reflects this vision and sets the stage for us to make worry-free charging a reality for the mass adoption of electric vehicles.
The Plugsurfing logo reflects our role as the bridge between all stakeholders of the electric car ecosystem. We connect charging point operators, carmakers, and drivers within one platform, thus creating an accessible experience full of choice for everyone involved. Such interoperability requires utmost transparency. To ensure that these values carry on into the future with the evolution of the electric car market, we’re laying a new foundation for future growth in tandem with our partners.
Version 7
Version 7 is a part of a broader rework of our platform’s architecture to ensure we are ready for the future. This new, stable, and future-proof foundation will enable us to broaden the Plugsurfing ecosystem even further with deeper integrations in the next generation of electric vehicles and tools to meet the changing demands of charging point operators and drivers.
Version 7 redefines performance and experience. Drivers rely on Plugsurfing to carry them along their journey. That’s why we have double downed on the basics by providing clear information on charging station availability and guiding drivers to the right plug for their car. We also now offer detailed information about your charging sessions, chat functions for resolving issues and talking to support, and an in-app store for charging keys and cards.
Our new brand’s look and feel is also front and center. Drivers will find the app more intuitive, with better readability from a new font and icons, improved gestures to navigate the app, and an enhanced menu. But some of the most important changes in this app, that enable this enhanced performance and experience, are unseen.
Reimagined from the ground up
Plugsurfing Version 7 coincided with a migration of our platform to a new architecture. Put simply, the back-end of Plugsurfing has been reimagined from the ground up. This gives the operators of charging points, automakers, and ultimately drivers more control of the whole experience while increasing reliability, interoperability, and transparency—key elements for scaling our platform across more chargers, cars, and drivers as electric vehicle adoption grows exponentially in the next few years.
In addition to the drivers that use our app, Version 7 extends to our partners and their customers as well. Drivers who use special white label apps for our carmaker partners like Jaguar and Landrover will receive the same overhaul and benefits, as well as the EV drivers of our various fleet partners. Plugsurfing CEO Tatu Kulla believes “Version 7, and the new Plugsurfing Power Platform it is built upon, will ultimately help all of our partners reach new customers. Rebuilding the platform from the ground up means we’re ready for the electric future. The next adopters of electric vehicles need a reliable experience for charging, and this is what we are building together with our partners.”
Going back to the basics means that some of our well-liked features won’t be available immediately. They’re not going away forever. We are already working to get them back, re-thought and re-designed based on the feedback we’ve gathered from our users. The future of Plugsurfing needs be be laid now, so we can build on top of this stronger, technological foundation.
We are also aware that our migration to the Plugsurfing Power Platform, and release of the Version 7 app, did not go smoothly for all of our customers. As migrations of this scale are unprecedented in the emobility world, we anticipated that some of our customers could experience temporary inconveniences on a service essential to day-to-day life. Unfortunately this came into fruition. For example, some customers were unable to log in, or they found that special pricing from their subscriptions or vouchers were missing.
We apologize for the disruption this caused to your ability to get around. Our customer support team is working overtime to bring the charging opportunities our customers expect back so that they can hit the road again.
We at Plugsurfing also extend a hand toward you to continue to join us on the journey of electric mobility. The early adopters among you are about to have new company as electric cars go mainstream. That is why we reworked our whole platform and built our app. It’s for us to enter the sustainable future together, and we do not take the trust you have put in us over the years for granted.
The next wave of electric car drivers will have demands that differ from early adopters. Version 7 and the Plugsurfing Power Platform is built with them in mind, increasing reliability and performance while making the overall experience an easy one. And with a strong back-end for our partners to build upon, we will only increase the accessibility and variety of chargers to all drivers on our network.
Here’s to the carefree drive. See you on the road.
