Air BnB for EV charging ‘Share&Charge’ to close down

The app Share&Charge that allows users to offer EV drivers the use of their private charging station is closing down on March, 31. An email informed all members that the blockchain-based service is to go into revision. Maker MotionWerk remains convinced that this will be the future of EV charging.

The app Share&Charge had wanted to become the AirBnB of EV sharing reportedly when it launched last May. Its business model was to allow users to open their private EV charging stations to passing drivers of electric cars. Payment was supposed to be done via blockchain.

Innogy as incubator had bought into the idea early on and had allowed access to 1,000 charging points. Developed by MotionWerk, the Share&Charge platform had also made it across the pond, where EMotorWerks wanted link EV drivers with owners of home charging stations and thus test a peer-to-peer charging marketplace in California.

While Share&Charge will discontinue the service as of the end of March, they will offer their software as open source and plan to come back in the future.

This is the email: “The deposit function in the app has already been deactivated and the payout function in the new version has been opened for everyone. […] Even if we close the Share&Charge app at this time, we are still convinced that electromobility and blockchain technology belong together. We will use the experience and knowledge from the last few months to restructure the Share&Charge app, transform it into a foundation, further decentralize it, open it to other partners and make all our software available as “open source” software.”

Source: via email to electrive.com