MAY 2023 AFTERMARKET 17 of smart, ‘self-healing’ EV chargers are not yet widely adopted. We believe this capability will be software-led, as evidenced by the smartphone market (where your smartphone learns from your daily charging habits to improve the lifespan of your battery). Today, companies such as Driivz claim they can already address up to 80% of operational problems related to EV chargers remotely, by leveraging automated self-healing algorithms. As a result, issues with EV infrastructure can be automatically diagnosed and proactively fixed (even remotely) which maximizes network availability and stability. From a user point of view, EVs need to be charged much more frequently than gasoline vehicles. Instead of the typical 40 annual fuelling sessions for a gasoline car, an EV may need 500 or more yearly charging sessions. The nature of these sessions is different i.e. not just one-way, full charge every time. This presents opportunities for software to play a role in the optimisation of the charging sessions and to take advantage of those daily www.aftermarketonline.net interactions to upsell users various services. In the long run we anticipate the emergence of super-apps from the EV charging software sector, which will fuel significant additional growth. Finally, EV charging software will be instrumental to the transition towards renewable energies. According to Virta Global, there will be 140-240 million electric vehicles globally by 2030, which means there will be at least 140 million batteries with an aggregated storage capacity of 7TWh, or 7,000GWh. In 2021, only 2.4GW of storage was developed in Europe, but various studies predict we’ll need around 200 GW of energy storage by 2030. EVs will provide crucial power storage to support the generation of renewable energy, using vehicle-togrid (V2G) technology. As more V2G protocols continue to be developed (currently mostly dominated by CHAdeMO-type chargers), we see software playing a larger role to harmonise the different standards/protocols. A whitepaper from Kaluza shows a typical EV sits parked 90% of the time with a battery capable of storing 40kWh of energy – enough to power an average modern home for two days. Unlocking bi-directional charging will enable more affordable, highly resilient energy transition. Companies such as ev.energy and Kaluza are already exploring and developing, trialing, and deploying software in this space. This is done by engaging the automotive OEM early and forming close collaboration with regulators to implement frameworks that enable scale. These companies are now set to play a critical role in providing solutions to help take the strain off the grid and accelerate the transition toward renewable energies. Overall, we see EV charging software as one of the fastest growing, and potentially one of the largest, new software sectors in the market today. As the complexity and scale of EV charging networks increases, EV charging software looks set to eventually become a $50bn+ market, helping drive the global economy even faster toward net zero.
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