The full-range e-mobility provider from Baden-Wuerttemberg offers the most convincing combo of charging app and tariff. But even with the grade “good“ there is still room for improvement.

The Baden-Wuerttemberg utility company is active in the e-mobilty market as a full-range provider. It offers it own charging stations especially in its home federal state as well offering as its app “Mobility+“ nationwide – including the asso­ciated payment service.

The German auto club ADAC also relies on its partner EnBW for offering its own charging card. As Ionity raised its prices in January, EnBW does not support their charging stations for the time being, so that HPC charge points are underrepresented at “Mobility+“.

In the tests, setting up an user ­account turned out to be a ­little tricky. Once this hurdle was cleared, EnBW scored well for handling and functionality.
Its pricing model is also trans­parent. Charging at different supported locations worked ­largely without any problems.

Maingau EinfachStromLaden

The app and tariff of the e-mobility brand “EinfachStromLaden“ (simply charge electricity) left little to be desired in our test. All in all, the service from Maingau Energie GmbH deserved the grade “good“.

In recent years, the utility company based near Offenbach/Main turned out to be an important player among the electric mobility providers. ­Under its brand “EinfachStromLaden“ (english translation: simply charge electricity) it offers an app and charging tariffs which provide access to a ­wide choice of charging points in Germany and all over ­Europe. In order to provide a navigation function, the app uses the online map service Mapbox.

However, in the test, searching for a suitable charging point, did not always work instantly. Furthermore, in the initial ­setup no pricing infos were shown. When selecting a charge point later, they ­appeared nonetheless. But all in all, charging with “EinfachStromLaden“ worked ­without major problems.

Telekom GetCharge

The e-mobilty offering of Deutsche Telekom, provided access to the highest number of charging points in the test, but left room for improvements in details. From July on, the service will have a new owner.

In the middle of our testing, we received news that Telekom will sell its e-mobility service GetCharge to the Switzerland-based vendor Alpiq. Still, for the customers, initially nothing is supposed to change – they can continue to use the app and the subscribed tariff as normal. The ­Telekom offering goes strong with the best coverage of charging points in our com­parison and scored ahead of Maingau in this respect.

However, our tests identified some areas where details could be improved – for example we would like to see filter functions better leading to the desired outcome or more information before and after charging. But all in all, every­thing worked flawlessly here as well – and maybe the new owner will kick it up a notch in the near future.