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The Volvo Ask

imagine and specify The charging/electrified experience in 2030

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The Observation

What are the problems we have for now?

Some quick Google searches show that the top challenges for owning an electric vehicle are:
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- Driving Range on average is still less than gasoline cars.
- Charging Time is significantly longer than refueling.
- Battery Life might be compromised if use fast-charging too often.
- Lack of Charging Infrastructure, and the different charging protocols by different service providers makes the charging experience quite complicated.
The Thinking

Are These Real Problems?

With the fast evolvements of technology, we can already see that the range is climbing up, longer battery warranty is being offered, more power stations are being built with standardized protocols.
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With this trend, it seems that the only issue may remain true in the future, is the long recharging time.
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Longer range and longer battery life also lead to longer charging time. Until we have another technical break-through, it would still be common that a full re-charge takes hours to complete.
This seems to be the only issue remaining
If the time is inevitable, can we make the waiting experience better?
Rephrasing The Objective

How might we keep the electric cars charged all the time, so that users don't need to worry about recharging at all.

Feels like a tweet-able line :)
Ideation

01

Daily Charging

Park and Leave

Over 90% of the time, our cars are parked there, doing nothing. Wouldn't it be perfect if our cars can automatically be recharged when parking?

Being "automatic" of course shouldn't require the driver to manually plug in the charger. That one extra step would break the whole seamless experience.

In 2030, most (if not all) parking lots should have pre-installed with wireless charging pads. As long as you park the car in the right position, it would start charging your car. The only action that might be required, is a simple click on the confirm button in the car or on a mobile app.

This could be the most common way of daily charging. When these wireless charging devices are available everywhere. Charging is no longer an additional step.

02

Daily Charging

enhanced Self-parking

One of the downsides of the wireless charging though, is that it may require the driver to park the car more precisely.

But in the same time, this also gives the car a good picture of the real world. This can help the cars to be more reliable at self-parking.

When all cars are electrified and powered with basic autonomous driving technology, all you need to do is to drive to the entrance of the parking lot, get off the car and let the car to do the rest of the job itself.

A notification would be sent to let you know when and where the car is parked. When you are ready to leave, you can also send a signal to the car for it to automatically come back to you.

03

On Demand Charging

Charging as a Service

Charging-while-parking is ideal, however, in busy cities, parking itself could sometimes be challenging.

In those cases that you are rushing into a client meeting, but there is nowhere nearby you can find a parking lot. An on-demand service could be called and a designated driver will come to you and take care of your car for parking and charging.

He will return your car at the requested time and place, with the battery as much charged as the time allows.

04

Fast Charging

Plan for long distance travel

For long distance driving, it is still necessary to have fast-charging to quickly refill the car.

Speed is important, but reliability and predictability is probable a higher priority here. You don't want to come to a charging station and realize it is not available for charging.

Both the in-car device and the mobile app should be able to show how many fast-chargers are available at the time you would arrive there. Reservations could be made prior to the trip and it will be dynamically updated based on the car's location.

The car should also dynamically calculate the remaining battery and show reminders to the driver that he/she should go to the next closest charging station.
Forget About Charging

it is The third place you deserved

Charging is not, and should not be treated as an equivalent to refueling. Having to refuel a car is a bad experience by itself. Extending it from minutes to hours certainly is not going to make it any better.

Unlike a gasoline car, you don't wait for the battery to be empty to do a recharge. It is an integrated experience. You keep the car charged as long as it is parked. Except for long-distance driving, you don't need to plan or even think about charging at all.

It is much easier to build electricity chargers than gas stations. When it is easy enough to recharge everywhere, having to drive to a certain place for recharge/refuel would only exist in history books.
With an electric car, you can turn on all the entertaining devices without starting the engine or worrying about the noise/exhaust. It is a very comfortable, quiet and private personal space. We can already watch movies and play video games in the electric cars now. It wouldn't be crazy that people would like to spend more time in their cars, not for driving, but just for entertaining and for fun.
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Continue reading: behind the scene .
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