Last month in a hackathon, BMW brought together 80 developers and computer programmers to tackle themes of sustainability and electro-mobility. BMW hosted the Sustainability Hackathon to try and deal with the problem of electric vehicles being parked at charging stations for extended periods of time even after they are fully charged.
For example, if a driver needs a few minutes of charging to reach their destination, but another EV is already hooked up to the charger, what do they do? One of the solutions explored was to anonymously contact the other driver to request permissions to charge for a few minutes, and then reconnect the original car upon completion. A total of $3,000 in prize money was awarded for the most practical, creative apps that would enable this sort of communication to use charging stations more efficiently.
The event was held from April 27 to April 29 at BMW’s Technology Office in Mountain View, CA, and was sponsored by BMW’s car sharing subsidiary DriveNow and the charging station network developer ChargePoint.
