Amazon’s Alexa and ChargePoint, maker of hardware for electric vehicle charging at home and at stations around the world, have announced an integration that allows users of the AI assistant to charge their vehicle with their voice.
With Alexa, ChargePoint Home users can turn the charger on or off and ask how many miles the current battery level will allow a vehicle to travel. Not sure if you plugged your car in to charge it? Ask Alexa to verify. To check on charging activity away from home, Alexa can also answer questions about your account balance or the amount of money spent charging at commercial or residential charging stations.
The addition of ChargePoint gives Amazon Alexa voice control of yet another smart home appliance and follows in the footsteps of washing machines, social robots, sprinkler and security systems, and others.
Also announced today, the ChargePoint app has been updated with a crowdsourcing feature that gives users the ability to share photos of hard-to-find charging stations. Notifications can also now be shared to alert a user when a nearby charging station opens up.
Last year ChargePoint raised more than $125 million to expand its charging station network and placement of ChargePoint stations across Europe.
Shortly before the funding announcement last June, ChargePoint announced plans to take over roughly 10,000 electric vehicle charging stations from General Electric.
Based in California, ChargePoint now has more than 43,000 charging stations in parts of North America, Europe, and Australia.