Chargedrop.app allows you to look for fast EV chargers around you in the US, check live if they're busy, and get an idea of what shops and restaurants are around :)
It's, at the moment, a personal project that is also an excellent playground to dust off some machine learning skills, my knowledge of AWS (and have an excuse to use some GPU-loaded EC2 instances), Python, and play around with an exciting use-case for Generative AI and LLMs.
Of course not! 😁 There's a pinch of AI into it: a small but effective neural network will tell you what's the likelihood a busy charging station will be free in the next 10 minutes.
Also, I generated all the point-of-interests related content running Llama2 on my laptop and applying some RAG techniques on top of OpenStreetMap APIs responses 😎
The results are, considering the minimal tuning done, quite surprising.
Beyond that, the vision would see chargedrop.app as a live meta-aggregator, consuming and displaying data from all EV charging providers and networks in one place, without the need to keep 6-7 different apps on your phone to accomplish the same.
Chargedrop.app is, as said, a personal project, and, to be honest, not all the data is so public ;)
That being said, if someone in Tesla, Blink, or any other EV charging network wants to help out unlocking some APIs... you're all welcome!
If you want to know more, if you want to collaborate or if you have feedback get in touch with me! I'd be happy to connect.
Mirko