NAF wants to help members charge their EV in the best way possible

The Norwegian Automobile Association (NAF) is no newcomer in the EV space. They have been helping their members get the most out of their electric vehicles since the Norwegian-produced Think EVs rolled around in the streets already in 2002 - 20 years ago!

After having been an integral part of the growth journey of EVs in Norway (🚀), pushing for government incentives and better charging infrastructure, they are now going even further to push the EV agenda forward. The new NAF charging app, launched in 2022, helps their members (and everyone else) charge their EV at the myriad of public charging stations that have popped up all over Norway.

Charging your EV should be simple

In the NAF charging app, users can easily locate, activate and pay for public charging. This works across a broad range of charge point operators (CPOs), eliminating the need for ten different charging apps when you are on the road. The NAF app is friendly and easy-to-use across UI and UX, lowering the threshold for new adopters to get the most value out of the app.

Talking to their beta users, NAF understood that car data was key to build the optimal charging experience. They therefore partnered with us in Enode to collect data directly from users’ EVs. Across the app the user can now see real-time data like:

• Battery percentage
• Plug-in-status
• Charge rate
• Charge time remaining

The last data point is key, as it lets users know when they can return to their car and expect it fully charged for the next part on the journey.

My car, my data

NAF is a non-profit organization, working solely to advocate and make life easier for their members. They take the consumers side in everything, from warranties from OEMs to aftermarket maintenance.

With more and more connected cars on the road, car owners are generating a huge amount of data from the use of their vehicle. This is an area NAF and their parent organization Federation Internationale De L’Automobile (FiA) have taken a particular interested in, to protect the consumers from OEMs misusing this data solely for their own benefit.

FiA, which represents 37 million drivers from Europe, the Middle East and Africa, in 2017 launched the campaign My Car My Data. This campaign had the goal of highlighting that the car owners are the also the owners of the data produced by the cars after purchase. With a complete review of EU legislation under GDPR they concluded:

1. Car data is personal data and owned by the car owner
2. Car owners have a choice to transfer their car data to a third party
3. Liability obligations do not allow for vehicle manufactures to deny third party access to data

At Enode we are also strong believers in the consumer’s right to their own data. This is why we always ask the end-user of an explicit consent to all data collected, and minimize the data we store on users over time. Hopefully can organizations like NAF and FiA lead the way for more EV OEMs to open up data directly from the cars. This will drive massive innovation in the e-mobility space and is a future we really look forward to!

We also look forward to continuing the partnership with NAF as they scale their app to more and more EV drivers around Europe. This is just the beginning of the huge growth we will see in the e-mobility sector. Therefore we need all hands on deck to solve the challenges that stand in the way of accelerating the EV adoption - like making it super easy to charge your EV on the road. Go NAF!