Drivers of electric cars must be able to quickly and ea­sily locate available and suitable charging points. To some extent, the onboard nav system can help. But in addition and in or­der to pay for the obtained kilowatt­ hours, it is almost indispensable to also have a selection of e-­mobility apps ready on the smart phone.

But how well do these apps work in practice? How successfully do they support the search for an avail­able charging point with the required plug type and the desired charging performance? Do they inform about the expected costs before starting the charging procedure, and are these indications reliable? Does the app provide real­time information about an ongoing charging process? Can the charging be unequivocally ended, and is the subsequent data in the charging history accurate? Is it possible to manage more than one electric vehicle? And how well does the app help if something does not work as expected? We exami­ne and answer these and many more pratice­-oriented questions in our tests of e­-mobilty apps.

Focusing on app security

But it does not stop there. As usual in our app tests, the apps‘ security is also an important point. In order to assess this aspect, the experts of our partner umlaut are looking for possible weaknesses and vulnerabi­lities. With their testing me­thodology, the Aachen­-based security professio­nals also inspect the protection of personal data, the encryption of the data communication between the apps and servers, the authentifica­tion mechanisms and rights management as well as the safeguarding of the apps‘ source codes.

The examined attack scenarios are based on the guidelines for secure programming of the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI, Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik) and the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP). Many tests have been developed by umlaut itself and all results are verified by two
engineers for control purposes.