Coulomb Technologies Announces Partnership with TomTom to Bring Charging Station Location, Navigation and Reservation Features to Electric Vehicle Drivers

Industry-First Partnership Extends EV Driver Services to Automobile Navigation Systems to Enable Drivers to Locate and Navigate to the Nearest Available Charging Stations Reducing Driver Range Anxiety

Campbell, Calif., July 18, 2011 Coulomb Technologies today announced it will partner with TomTom for an industry-first partnership to extend ChargePoint Network driver services into electric vehicles (EV).  The partnership will help to fuel EV adoption by reducing range anxiety, extending driving range and maximizing the EV driving experience by bringing charging station location, navigation and reservation services right to a driver’s dashboard.  A demonstration of this technology partnership will be shown at the Plug-in 2011 show in the Coulomb Technologies booth #121, July 18 – 21 in Raleigh, NC. 

“We are proud to partner with TomTom, the leader in navigational systems,” said Pat Romano, president and CEO at Coulomb.  “This partnership announcement is a milestone for the EV industry.   The successful adoption of electric vehicles will depend on the ability of EV drivers to easily locate charging stations and more importantly to ensure that the station is available, especially now when there are more EVs than stations in many locations.”

At Plug-in 2011, Coulomb and TomTom will demonstrate how TomTom’s navigation platforms can use the open ChargePoint Network Web Services API to assist drivers to:

  • find the nearest available charging station
  • navigate to a destination and optimize the route for the nearest available charging stations  
  • reserve a charging station in advance for a time that is best for the route and the needed charging time
  • access charging station information including power, connector type, availability, and pricing

“This is the first in-car, charging station reservation demonstration of its kind.  It shows how the ChargePoint Network open platform enables companies like TomTom to develop new applications for drivers to manage their driving experience from their home, or on the road,” stated Ed Taylor, director of product marketing at Coulomb.

About Coulomb Technologies, Inc.

Coulomb Technologies is the leading electric vehicle charging solutions company, providing the ChargePoint Network, the largest global online network connecting electric vehicle drivers to unoccupied charging stations in over 14 countries; and the ChargePoint Network service plans, cloud-based solutions that handle all driver billing and support and give organizations the control and flexibility they need to optimize performance of their electric vehicle charging operations. Coulomb Technologies customers include utilities such as Orlando Utilities Commission and Austin Energy in the US, Nuon in The Netherlands, and ESB in Dublin; municipalities such as City of San Francisco and City of New York in the US, City of Amsterdam in The Netherlands, City of Newcastle in the UK, and City of Bochum in Germany. Open to all charging station manufacturers, Coulomb's ChargePoint Network is currently charging more than 26,000 vehicles per month, dispensing over 115 Megawatt hours (MWh) of energy each month, and doubling the electric transportation fuel dispensed each quarter.

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