Project aims to help both vehicle owners and charging operators with logistical predictability

ChargeHub, and AXSO are collaborating on a new EV charger reservation system they hope will add predictability and security for both fleets and charging networks. 

It’s an initiative that satisfies two competing, but related priorities: commercial fleet operators want reliable access to public chargers before electrifying, while EV charging operators want guaranteed customers before investing hundreds of thousands of dollars to expand charging networks. 

ChargeHub is the developer of the single-source EV charging locator and payment app, bring its expertise in integration to the project. Meanwhile AXSO, a subsidiary of Hydro Quebec, has experience dealing in charging management software.

Reducing downtown

The project will develop an app to connect multiple charging networks together, not just for simple payment, but also to allow fleet operators to schedule a charging slot, ensuring they can plan their routes without worry of delays.

ChargeHub will develop the central reservation hub and fleet-facing interfaces, while AXSO will build the reservation module on the charging operator side.

Francis De Broux, the COO of ChargeHub, tells Electric Autonomy Canada that downtime at a charging station can cascade through an entire day’s fleet logistics. 

Connecting networks together

“If you’re delivering packages all day and you need to show up at a charging station, and there’s a lineup of four vehicles and you wait an hour — that just breaks the whole flow,” he said in an interview. 

De Broux said there are already a handful of proprietary reservation tools available, but each belongs to a single charging network. The new platform is designed to connect multiple charging operators and fleet management systems through a single point — the same model ChargeHub uses for EV roaming payments.

“As a fleet operator, you don’t want to have to integrate with 50 different operators and have different reservation systems that all feed into the big logistics system,” De Broux said. 

“You want that one integration where you can reserve on many.”

Expanding location data

The ChargeHub/AXSO platform will be built on OCPI 2.3, the latest version of the international open charging interoperability protocol, which for the first time includes a dedicated reservation module. 

De Broux said the project is still in its conceptual phase, with the team currently gathering industry needs before finalizing technical specifications. 

An immediate first step will be expanding the location data available for charging sites, such as whether a heavy truck can pull through, whether trailer detachment is required and what parking configurations are available, before layering in actual reservation capability.

“For these bigger vehicles, that information is not currently displayed in maps, and it is the first barrier to remove,” he said.

Live operational conditions

The official project has a two-year timeline, though De Broux said the team hopes to have real-world pilots running within that window. 

Circuit électrique stations will be part of the initial testing environment, with validation in live operational conditions by the carrier fleets Nationex and Intelcom, who are also partners in the project. 

The Quebec government has backed the initiative with $450,000 in funding.

While the project is meant to incorporate all sizes of fleet vehicles, there are currently no public megawatt chargers available in Canada for heavy-duty, Class 8 trucks. De Broux hopes finding success with this project will help prime the pump for high-power charging networks.

“One of the barriers for accelerating [megawatt charger rollout] is the unknown about charging predictability for operators. If there are some good solutions that work well for medium-duty vehicles, for example, which are less expensive to deploy and to learn from, that’s a perfect case study to say, ‘Now we know how to scale … charging solutions.’”

De Broux said interest from other charging network operators has already emerged since the announcement. “We already have some other network operators saying, ‘We want to know more.’”