Finding a hotel with EV charging point

EV Chat ⚡️💬
#1

Hi all,

we are a group of individuals behind r3charge.com, a startup that makes life of EV owners easier by letting them book hotels with EV chargers.

While hotels.com and Booking already have filters for EV chargers, they provide no information about what kind of charger it is and what is the cost. At the same time open chargers map do not offer hotel booking services.

We at r3charge gather information from public EV chargers maps and allow to book hotels near chargers at lowest rates.

We are at a very early stage and we are looking forward to understanding whether our functionality would be accepted and used by EV owners. We also would like to know if there any specific nice-to-have features that you would like to see on a hotel-booking site for EV travelers.

Kind regards,
Maria
r3charge.com

2 Likes
#2

A lot of people on this forum are Twizy owners that need a BS 3 pin socket. Will you cater for that?

1 Like
#3

Yes! We display all the various plugs available at the location.

#4

This is a great idea, although I’d worry that your USP isn’t that difficult for other big sites to implement. I’d certainly use a service like this however.

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#5

@fairymary Just took a look at your site and you have a bug on your map (at least on mobile). The pin doesn’t reposition itself when zooming and panning.

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#6

There are already one or two websites offering this kind of service. I looked into this when I drove from Finland to the UK last summer. Realistically, there are few hotels which offer their own chargers (or within realistic walking distance unless you stay in the centre of a big city) and those that do have extortionate pricing, usually just one or two charging spots and it’s often impossible to reserve them - and booking a room at their hotel doesn’t guarantee that their charging infrastructure will be working on the day you arrive. With the growth of plug-in hybrid cars, it’s no longer enough to just have one or two charging stations available.

From the ten hotels we stayed at three of them had their own charging stations, one of which was broken. One station was free, the the was expensive. Realistically, it’s only the very expensive hotels which offer their own charging stations.

From my experience it’s always cheaper to charge publicly on your journey to and from a hotel, rather than charge at the hotel itself. Of course, the downside to this means that you’re rarely able to charge overnight.

1 Like