Find electric charge points with What3Words

In a few of the videos I’ve seen on YouTube with people looking for a place to charge their electric vehicle it seems it sometimes can be a little bit difficult. On the map it shows the charger as being at a specific address, but when you arrive there in your Nissan Leaf you have to do some searching. Is the charger at this end of the car park or the other end of the car park? Would you have a better chance of finding what you’re looking for if the position was specified down to a resolution of 3m x 3m? Probably… The other problem could be the charger you’re looking for hasn’t got an address. There are no names for the roads and maybe not even any buildings to use as a reference. Do you want to type in those Long. Lat. numbers to find your electron pump? There’s a solution for these problems. It’s a system called What3Words.

The benefits of What3Words

This system has divided the globe into a grid of 3 m x 3 m squares. Each of these squares in the grid have been assigned a unique three word address. These words can in a choice of languages and will still point to the right place. It would be tedious to input a whole load of seemingly random numbers with longitude and latitude to pinpoint a location. Words are more memorable than numbers and therefore easier to use. I’d like to see this system integrated into the applications like Chargemap, PlaceToPlug, OpenChargeMap and PlugShare. It would be so easy to find any charge point to the nearest 3 m. It’s even possible to give a What3Words address for each individual charge bay. What3Words would be brilliant to use as a locator for anything at all. When you want to dig a hole in a forest in the back end of nowhere to deposit your pirates chest full of gold and jewels, What3Words is just the job.

Use the What3WordsApp

There are applications for What3Words on iOS and Android. It’s easy to use to pinpoint exactly where any place is on the earth. Share a three word address to whoever by using the application sharing options. Or send the What3Words 3 word address to mapping applications you use on your device. Whether that be Apple Maps, Google Maps, Waze. A great way to get the directions to the treasure X marks the spot…

What3Words in Use

Use the Mapping app to get directions

Crowd-sourced information

So if you’ve found a charging point difficult to discover you could add the three word address into the feedback in the system. Many of the applications to help you find charging points for your car allow crowd-sourced information. This will help other electric car drivers find the charging points. If enough people do this is better for all of us. There’s also a chance that the makers of the charger finder apps will add this functionality once they see how useful it is.