How R3 is building the most innovative and reliable EV charging infrastructure

Electric mobility is a tremendous challenge. One of the biggest objections that drivers have towards buying an electric car is range anxiety.

To reassure drivers, there is a big push to increase the numbers of chargepoints available.

As an example, France currently has around 82,00075,000 chargepoints, a figure that has been increased by 53% within a year and will reach 215,000 chargepoints open to the public by 2025 for light vehicles.

Here comes R3, part of DBT group.

The R3 offer aims to democratize access to ultra-fast charging by ensuring both access to all and permanent availability.

R3 is building a network of partners such as Norauto which parking lots are equipped with 150kW charging solutions based on DBT technology.

R3 provides preventive and corrective maintenance of their charging stations with a 24/7 customer service.

In case of a problem on one of their charging stations, R3 commits themselves to undertake a remote action in less than 2 hours through a reliable and secure multi-carrier cellular connection on every charging station.

DBT now offers its supervision network to customers outside R3.

This new service provides customers with information on the operability of their charging stations. In a monthly report, DBT addresses the consumption of the different charge points, the payment method and the type of charge (fast, connector, etc..). Mandatory for legal authorities, this supervision is proposed to develop the R3 network as well as for a packaged offer of charging stations sold independently.

Benefits of a multi-carrier cellular connection for EV chargers

As a Webbing’s reseller, Move & Connect provides R3 a global network with 200 countries covered through 650 roaming agreements. Thales’s  agnostic M2M SIM Cards support all technologies  3G, LTE, 5G, CAT-M and are remotely updated.

OUT-OF-THE-BOX CONNECTIVITY READY TO SCALE

Move & Connect’s IoT cellular solution is very quick and easy to deploy. Chargepoints can be installed wherever they are needed. With no restrictions on siting due to lack of connectivity, chargepoints can serve drivers wherever they want to charge their vehicles.

FLEXIBILITY

Most SIM cards and cellular contracts begin charging for data usage as soon as they are shipped. But thanks to Move & Connect, there is no charge until our M2M automotive SIM Cards are deployed on the field even if they sit idle for months.

Move & Connect’s flexible dynamic pool allows R3 to suspend SIM Cards when they are unused and trigger automatically the suspension of billing.

RELIABILITY

R3’s customer service is up 24/7 and relies on the cellular connectivity.

As a full MVNO, Webbing runs its own IP infrastructure that complies the requirements of ISO/IEC 27001.

By partnering with Move & Connect, R3 takes advantage of the Webbing’s secured core network and focus on providing the best user experience.

SECURITY

Chargepoints generate a lot of datas such as the chargepoint ID, the plug-in & unplug time and date, the total drawn in kilowatt hours ; payment method, account number and amount spent on the charging session.

All those insightful datas must be secured.

With cellular IoT, security is far less of an issue than with other options. Cellular networks use physical SIM cards or eSIMs to authenticate devices and associate them with a legitimate subscriber, making it easier to trust datas. So this cellular connection is also used by the terminal of payment.

By combining this with a properly managed connectivity service and connectivity management platform with a 2FA secured access, private APN controlled network and secure VPN networking, R3 can be confident that their datas are secured from end-to-end.

Conclusion

In a study conducted by McKinsey, it has been estimated that Europe would need 6.8 million chargepoints by 2030 if it is to meet its target of reducing car emissions by 55%.

But to be successful, chargepoints will need to be ultra fast, easily deployable, reliable and able to send  data securely to the Cloud.

Multi-carrier cellular connectivity solutions offer all these advantages and ensure that chargepoints can be rolled out with ease to meet the needs of EV drivers.