Nissan & Plugsurfing charging app starts in Europe

The Nissan Charge App developed by Nissan and Plugsurfing enables electric car drivers to charge at over 100,000 charging points throughout Europe. The service that includes navigation and charge management first launches in Italy and Germany before successively covering other markets.

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For now, the Nissan Charge App is available in Germany and Italy. The service will be introduced gradually in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.

The app is designed to offer the usual functions of a charging app: Users can use various filters to find a suitable charging station, navigate their way to the station, and start or stop the charging process using the app. There is also a community function with which users can provide feedback and ratings for charging stations, which should improve route planning for other users.

“Nissan Charge is the next step in making owning an electric car even better,” says Helen Perry, Head of Electric Vehicles at Nissan Europe. “By connecting users with the charging network, it gives users all the charging information they need at their fingertips.”

However, not everyone can use this service: according to Nissan and Plugsurfing, the app is only open to Leaf drivers, not e-NV200. When registering, the vehicle’s chassis number must also be entered, which excludes use by outside customers.

It remains to be seen how much precisely the service will cost the Leaf drivers. Plugsurfing only speaks of “flexible payment options and competitive prices”. Besides, the app should also be able to select charging stations at Nissan dealerships “which offer drivers their own stations at attractive prices,” according to Plugsurfing.

The Berlin-based startup also entertains cooperations with Kia and Jaguar in Europe to name but a few. Founded in 2012 in Berlin, Plugsurfing was acquired by the Finnish charging infrastructure operator Fortum in March 2018.

Update 28 November 2019: The Nissan Charge app developed in collaboration with Plugsurfing, is now available in other European countries. After it was only available in Germany and Italy for the launch in October, five new countries have just been added: France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark and Sweden.

Update 26 February 2020: Nissan now offers its charging service for the electric van e-NV200. Until now it had been reserved for drivers of the Nissan Leaf. The app, which is offered together with Plugsurfing, now gives all drivers of Nissan electric vehicles access to more than 150,000 charging points throughout Europe, including over 24,000 in Germany. Until the end of September, the service itself is free of charge for e-NV200 drivers, after that it costs one euro per month. A ten per cent discount on the usual prices in the Plugsurfing network is included when charging on the network.

Update 02 July 2020: The Nissan Charge app offered by Nissan together with Plugsurfing is now also available in the Benelux. This means that drivers of the Nissan Leaf and e-NV200 can now access over 85,000 additional charging points in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Nissan customers will only pay the respective electricity costs, but not any other roaming charges, Plugsurfing promises in the announcement.

Source: via email, nissannews.com (update), nissannews.com (update II in German), plugsurfing.com (PDF, update III)