It's easy to find an EV charging station in Thailand
To conserve energy and reduce consumption, one of the most favoured solutions is the use of electric vehicles (EV), thanks to their zero emissions and cheaper energy cost per kilometre, not to mention having lower cost of maintenance comparing to traditional fossil-fuel vehicles, due to a much lower number of parts.
However, many potential buyers are still on the fence about converting to EVs, fearing that the current charging infrastructure is not comprehensive enough for long-distance trips. It’s the worst nightmare of EV owners to find their vehicles out of juice in the middle of nowhere, with no charging stations around.
To put their minds at ease, Energy Absolute Public Co Ltd (EA), one of Thailand’s largest EV manufacturers and charging-station operators, has developed the mobile application “EA Anywhere” to conveniently find charging stations nearby.
Available on both App Store and Google Play Store, EA Anywhere features the voice assistants Siri and Google Assistant to enable hands-free use while driving.
Simply open the app or visit https://www.eaanywhere.com to get started. The app will ask for confirmation of your current location from a map, then choose the type of charging you need (normal charge or quick charge).
If you pick normal charging, you have to select the type of connection based on your car’s specifications – Type 1, Type 2 or CCS 2.
The app will display available stations near you, ranked by distance. You then can proceed to select the station and let the app navigate you to there.
The EA website’s “maps” section offers a more traditional way of finding your way around and shows charging station throughout Thailand, including the locations of “coming soon” stations.
EA currently has more than 400 stations in Bangkok and is aiming for 1,000 throughout Thailand (500 in Bangkok and periphery, 500 upcountry).
Combined with charging stations from other operators, EV users should have no problem finding a station, especially in urban Bangkok, Pattaya, Chiang Mai and Songkhla.
As an alternative to EA Anywhere, check out https://www.pumpcharge.com, where you can register and locate hundreds of stations in the Bangkok area. It also has an app called “PumpCharge” that has some nice features like reserving the charging slot in case there’s a queue.
According to the Ministry of Land Transport, by December 2018, Thailand had 122,631 registered hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV), while 1,454 were battery-electric vehicles (BEV). Only HEV can run on gas alone and doesn’t require a charging station, while PHEV and BEV need external plug-in sources.
The Energy Policy and Planning Office under the Ministry of Energy is supporting private entrepreneurs who want to invest in EV charging stations by providing funds to cover both gentrification of the area and construction of the station.
From October 2018 to May 2019, over 80 stations were built under this project with Bt46 million in funding paid to investors.