Coronavirus: Support scheme in favour of health workers and call to the EV driver community

A vast number of health professionals (district nurses, doctors etc.) have opted for electric cars because they are particularly well adapted to regular rounds and visiting patients. As some health workers don’t have home-charging solutions, they use public charging stations to top up their batteries.

In these times of lockdown and self-isolation, some public charging stations are no longer available. Charging stations located on the premises of car dealers, shopping centres, hotels and restaurants are becoming increasingly inaccessible as many of them are being shut down temporarily due to the health crisis.

This situation just adds to the stress health staff are already having to cope with as they need to keep charging up their vehicles in a context that is already very difficult. 

At Chargemap, and in agreement with other stakeholders in the EV ecosystem, we would like to propose a number of initiatives to lend our support to health workers as they lead the fight against COVID-19.

Initiative N°1: Calling on the community to rally round and share private charging points

All EV drivers with personal charging solutions are invited to share them on Chargemap via the add form on the website or the mobile app. It would be wonderful if this could be shared with the entire community without distinction, but if you wish to limit usage to health workers alone, you can add this into the description. 

If you need help, here’s a guide on how to add a charging station on Chargemap.

The aim of this initiative is to help health professionals who don’t have a charging solution at home to leave their car charging overnight or during their shift.

If you welcome someone at your home for charging purposes, please don’t forget to respect a distance of at least one metre when speaking to them and to disinfect the handles of the connectors with hand sanitiser before and after charging to avoid contamination.

Initiative N°2: Calling on the community to rally round and update information on accessing infrastructures

Following lockdown measures, a number of places offering charging infrastructure are temporarily closed (restaurants, hotels, car dealers, shopping centres etc.).

If you know of a location that has closed, thereby shutting off access to a charging station, please send in your contribution by using the “Modify” button on the charging station screen via the mobile app or the Chargemap website.

However, don’t make a trip just to check out if a charging station is operational. You will help health workers more by staying at home.

Initiative N°3 (in France only): Reimbursement of charges carried out by health workers

In France, several charging networks compatible with the Chargemap Pass are joining the support scheme. And Chargemap is undertaking, under certain conditions, to reimburse charges conducted by health professionals on these networks. For logistic reasons, this initiative is only valid in France.

👉 Find out more on the conditions for eligibility and the French networks concerned.

We hope that these initiatives will be helpful for all those health workers who are fighting so hard to care for patients affected by COVID-19. We send them all our encouragement and grateful thanks. 🙏

Photo credits: Woman photo created by freepik – www.freepik.com