Will I Make It to the Next Charger? An Idea for an EV Road-Trip Planner Built for Thai Roads, and Why We Want Your Feedback First

If you’ve driven an EV out of Bangkok on a long weekend, you probably know the routine. The night before, you open three or four charging apps, one per network, and try to stitch a route together. On the highway you watch the range number drop faster than the brochure promised, because it’s 36 degrees, the AC is on full and the car is loaded with family and luggage. Then you pull into the charger you planned on and find it offline, or occupied with a queue behind it.

None of this is a disaster. It’s a constant low-level tax of planning, guessing and worrying that petrol drivers never pay.

We’re Simplico, a software studio in Thailand. Most of our EV work is on the other side of the plug: we build charging station management systems for operators. We have an idea for an app for drivers, and we want to find out whether it’s worth building. simpliRange is an idea, not a product. There’s no app yet. This post describes what we’d build and asks you to tell us whether you’d use it.

The charging map is big, and split into pieces

Thailand’s public charging network is no longer small. The Electric Vehicle Association of Thailand counted 4,643 public charging stations with 13,977 outlets as of 31 January 2026, led by EV Station PluZ, EA Anywhere, Reversharger, PEA Volta and EleX by EGAT.

The problem is that each of those networks is its own island:

• Separate apps, accounts and payments. Each operator sets its own app, membership rules, prices and payment options, so a cross-country trip can mean switching apps and accounts at every stop.
• Prices vary more than people expect. Public DC charging at common networks runs roughly 7 to 7.5 baht per unit, about one and a half times an all-in home rate, and on some networks lingering after a session finishes now costs extra.
• A single national system is coming, but not yet. Government agencies and PTT’s retail arm have signed an agreement to study a national EV Roaming Hub, but it is a feasibility study, not an operating service.

So today, the job of "will I make it, where do I stop, and what will it cost" falls on the driver.

The idea in one paragraph

You tell simpliRange your car, your battery percentage, and where you’re going. It plans the trip with charging stops across every network, and for each stop it shows the battery you’ll arrive with, how long to charge, what it will cost, and which app you’ll need there. The range prediction accounts for what actually drains a battery on Thai roads: heat, AC, highway speed, passengers and luggage, and hills. During the trip, other drivers’ recent check-ins tell you whether a charger is actually working before you commit to it.

flowchart TD
    A["Pick your car and enter battery level"] --> B["Enter destination and passengers"]
    B --> C["App predicts real range for heat AC speed and load"]
    C --> D["Plan with charging stops across all networks"]
    D --> E["Each stop shows arrival battery time cost and app needed"]
    E --> F{"Charger confirmed working recently"}
    F -->|"Yes"| G["Drive and charge"]
    F -->|"No recent check-in"| H["Suggest a backup charger nearby"]
    H --> G

What it would do

Feature	What it means for you
Realistic range	Arrival battery estimates that account for heat, AC, speed, passengers and elevation, not just the brochure figure
One map, every network	Chargers from all major operators in one place, filtered by connector type and charging speed
Trip cost in baht	Estimated charging cost for the whole trip, with on- and off-peak prices where operators publish them
Driver check-ins	"Working", "broken" or "queue" reports from other drivers, with how recently each was confirmed
Backup stops	A second compatible charger near every planned stop, in case the first one fails
Share your ETA	Send your trip progress to a LINE chat so family knows where you are
Offline route	Your route and chargers saved on the phone for provincial roads with weak signal

"I already have the operator apps"

You do, and for a trip within one network’s coverage they work well. Here’s where we think a planner could be better:

• It covers every network at once. Operator apps show their own chargers. A planner that sees all of them can pick the best stop rather than the stop on one brand’s map.
• It plans around your car, not an average car. A good range estimate depends on your model, your load and the weather that day. That’s the difference between arriving at 25% and arriving at 5%.
• It tells you before you drive, not at the charger. Cost, connector type, which app you’ll need and whether people have recently found it working, all before you leave home.

What it won’t do, at least at first, is start or pay for a charge. You’d still tap through to the operator’s own app at the charger.

Where the charger data comes from

We want to be upfront, because live data is the hardest part of this idea:

• At first, locations come from open data and drivers. Public registries and community-maintained maps give us charger locations and connector types. They don’t give live availability, and they can be out of date.
• "Is it working right now?" comes from other drivers. Every check-in shows how long ago it was made. We’d never present a guess as live status.
• Live status needs operators to share it. The industry standard for this is called OCPI. We’d ask operators to share live availability with us directly, and connect to the national roaming hub if and when it opens.

Privacy: a trip planner shouldn’t track you

A trip planner has to know where you’re going, so we’d set the rules from the start:

• No trip history unless you choose to save it. A route is used to plan that trip, nothing more.
• Charger reports aren’t tied to you. Other drivers see when a charger was last confirmed working, not who confirmed it.
• Family location sharing is opt-in and stops automatically when the trip ends.

What it is not

• It doesn’t charge or bill you. It plans and informs. Starting and paying for a session stays in the operator’s app for now.
• It isn’t a guarantee. A charger can fail between a check-in and your arrival. That’s why every planned stop has a backup.

Where this idea stands

Item	Status
Range prediction for heat, AC, speed and load	Idea only
One map covering all major networks	Idea only
Trip cost estimate in baht	Idea only
Driver check-ins and backup stops	Idea only
Live charger availability	Later, only with operators who agree to share it
Starting and paying for charging in the app	Not planned for the first version
Pricing	Not decided — one of our questions

What we want to learn

1. How do you plan an EV trip today? Which apps, and how long does it take you?
2. Has a charger let you down? Offline, occupied, wrong connector, or a price you didn’t expect? What did it cost you in time?
3. How far off is your car’s range estimate on a hot highway day with the AC on and the car full?
4. Would you report a charger’s status after you use it, if it took one tap?
5. What would you pay? Nothing; a small yearly fee; or only for extras like live availability?
6. Is the operator app honestly enough for you? If so, tell us. That’s useful too.

How you can help

Answer even one question. Email hello@simplico.net with the subject "simpliRange feedback", or message us on LINE at iiitum1984. "I only drive in Bangkok and charge at home" is as useful to us as "I need this for my next trip."

Let us plan your next trip by hand. Before writing any code, we want to test the idea with 20 drivers. Send us your car model, the route you’re planning, and roughly when, with the subject "simpliRange trip test". We’ll send back a charging plan with stops, arrival battery estimates and costs. After the trip, you tell us how close we were. That’s the test that matters.

Run a charging network? If you’d consider sharing live charger availability with a driver app, we’d like to talk. Reach us at the same email with the subject "simpliRange operator". Roaming and data sharing is the same OCPI work we already do for operators; we’ve written about what it involves for CPOs and eMSPs.

We’ll publish what we learn, including if the answer is "don’t build it".

FAQ

Is simpliRange available?
No. It’s an idea we’re testing before committing to build it.

Will it start charging or take payment?
Not in the first version. It plans the trip and tells you which operator app you’ll need at each stop.

Will it show live charger availability?
Not at first. Early on, charger status comes from other drivers’ check-ins, always shown with how recent they are. Live availability depends on operators agreeing to share their data.

Which cars would it support?
We’d start with the EV models most common on Thai roads and add more based on what testers drive. Tell us your model when you reply.

Is this for foreigners too?
Yes. We’d plan for English as well as Thai, and we’d like to hear from expats and visitors driving rental EVs.

Who is behind this?
Simplico, a software engineering studio based in Thailand. We build charging station management systems for operators; this would be our first product for the people actually doing the driving, so we’re asking drivers first.

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