MOOVILITY's Alexa Skill informs users about EV car charging stations nearby, routes, purchases a charging session and keeps an eye on an ongoing charging session. Many researchers have recognized the potential of visual displays to distract drivers. In order to prevent drivers from touching smartphones while driving, we decided to implement an Alexa Skill that accomplishes the charging station search task for EV drivers. The skill has a big potential to simplify the access to customized information and to save users time by connecting various providers. As a student and software developer, I had to discover the Alexa console, and the proposed features: the cards, the locations, and the account linking to maximize the skill's functionalities potential. While programming this Skill I have learned to manage a project working with deadlines, and except the users' interactions with a conversational agent.
The use cases are divided to four categories, in order for a customer to accomplish these basics functions; find a station, get more information, navigate to the station, and start charging.
1) find a station: To find a station, the customer asks Alexa ”find a station in my area”. Alexa will provide the user with the number of station in a three kilometer radius, the number of available stations, the address of the nearest station to the customers location, and store the station in the session. Every station is built by an Operator like ”SWM München”, ”Maingau Energie”, ”Telekom” but also has different Energie providers and services. The charging power and outlets type differs from a station to station. To facilitate the station search different filters are used to find only the station that are relevant for the user. It would be possible to ask Alexa ”find a station with SWM München” or ”find a station with 30 kilowatt power or higher”. This way of searching is only enabled for devices with GPS to get information about the customer location. When MOOVILITY is activated, the customer is asked to allow the skill to access to the location information. Another search option is also available when the costumer has linked his or her MOOVILITY App customerId with the skill. Allowing access to the customers information. Alexa can find the customers favorites and use them as locations for the search. This option is the only way to find stations when the used device doesn’t have a GPS, and is useful to find another station next to the favorite when this one is not available, the customer would ask Alexa ”find a station next to my OFFICE station”. The customer can save a station as a favorite and name it just by asking Alexa.
2) get Information about a station: The MOOVILITY App provides the customer with all possible Information about a station; opening times, address, services, offers, providers, prices for different charging scenarios, feedback, and prognosis... To keep Alexa answers short, and simple and facilitate the skill use, MOOVILITY provides only the most relevant information; address, the operator and providers, and the station status. when MOOVILITY has already found a station, the station ID is stored in a session, and the customer doesn’t need to specify the station every-time he or she asks for extra Information. The questions would be ”where is this station”, ”what is its status”, ”who is the operator”, and ”who are the providers”. It’s also possible to ask Alexa to find another station with a different filter and the stored ID in the session will be replaced. If no ID is stored, the customer can ask for information for a specific favorite station for example with the question; ”what is the status of my station OFFICE” the is the OFFICE station ID stored and it is not required to specify the station anymore.
3) The Navigation: When the customer decides to charge in a station, he or she can ask Alexa for the road description. The optimal solution would be to guide him or her using Alexa as navigation device or automatically open a map(google maps, or apple map) with this station as the destination. because Alexa doesn’t provide these features, another solution had to be created. instead of opening a map with Alexa, the station is stored as destination and the next time that MOOVILITY App is opened, a popup will be shown with different map options; Google maps, Apple maps and further. The customer must choose the routing service and the navigation will begin.
4) Start a charging session: Using the customerId and his or her favorite stored services, he or she can easely start and keep tracking a charging session.
For the future, more functionalities are planned such as: reserve stations, extend the charging service wallet, calculate the optimal tariff, and smart multi-stop routing.
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