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The first automatic conductive charger for electric vehicles

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DazePlug (The first automatic conductive charger for electric vehicles)

Reporting period: 2021-06-01 to 2022-05-31

Daze Technology, an Italian high-tech start-up, has developed DazePlug, the first totally autonomous conductive
charging system for Electric Vehicles (EV) to automate EV recharge. EV are the future of mobility and 2022 is
expected to represent an important turning point for electric mobility, as the price of EV is forecasted to be on par
with the price of their combustion engine counterparts. Studies by Deloitte, PwC and McKinsey have pointed out
that there are two basic issues that are keeping a share of customers away from the adoption of EV: 1) the “range
anxiety”, which basically reflects in the question “Will I manage to reach my destination and come back?”;2) the
“User Experience”, which deals with the complexity of the charging operations. We all know how to refuel our
combustion engine cars, but charging an electric vehicle is a completely different story. Despite the wider availability
of public charging stations, 90% of users are adopting and will still adopt home charging. However, who had the
chance to perform manual EV charging knows that the cable is bulky and heavy and to avoid accidents the driver
must be sure that the cable is dry and not coiled before starting the charge. Besides, once finished, the cable must
be unplugged and stored safely. DazePlug solves this problem through a robotic connector, placed on the ground
and connected to an electrical power supply network, and an on-board device installed under the car and directly
connected to the vehicle’s battery. The off-board robot automatically reaches the plug and connects itself to the vehicle
once the parking is completed, allowing the complete automation of the charging process through a simple plug&play
socket kit, dramatically enhancing the user experience.
The activities to be accomplished during the reported period (M1-M12) of the DazePlug project
are briefly reported.

The project management activities (WP1) started in the first month of the project and focused on the key tasks of project management.
The project manager is engaged to carry out a continuous revision and check of the risks that can affect the project’s advancement and success nad the competitor analysis.
At the end of August 2021, a patent application was presented for the fine positioning system employed in our solution and the already granted patet was exstented to USA.

In WP2, the focus is the development and testing of the A/B prototype, which is used to show the potential of our solution to OEMs and acquire them as early adopters.
During the development period of WP2, the selection of positioning systems was carried out with Zollner, Daze developed its own proprietary PCB of the charging brain and connect the oof-board unit to the EVSE to increase the modularity and the flexibility of the system.

WP3, that lasts from M7 to M18, focuses on the development of a prototype B which is an improvement in terms of performance and functionalities. As for the WP2, the task referred to the off board module is the most important. The WP is still ongoing and in the first part of Daze’s efforts were focused on the improvement of the “charging brain”, thus on the architecture of the PCB ,the update of the EVSE firmware and the App development. The other tasks related to this WP are Task 3.1 directed to the development of the on board module, for which we developed a list of requirements together with Zollner. Regarding the testing campaign we are testing UWB technology for coarse positioning
DazePlug is the first automatic conductive EV charger. One of the reason why people are hesitant to change their internal comubstion engine car with an electric car is the “User Experience”, which deals with the complexity of the charging operations, bulky and dirty cables to be handle every day.
Addittionally, using the conventional manual EV chargers, the user can forget to connect the EV with the possibility to be not able to use the car the day after.
Automatic EV charger can increase strongly the number of sold EV accelerating the ecological transition.
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