,allowExpansion)
Building a real-time charging and mobility data platform for a global OEM
By integrating fragmented systems and data streams, we create a seamless charging experience that reduces range anxiety and enhances driver trust.
#mobility
#iot
#cloud
The project at a glance
A system that manages the complexity of real-time charging and mobility data in the background, so the driver can focus on the road.
The scenario
Meeting rising expectations with a new POI management
Electric vehicle (EV) adoption is soaring. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), EVs are expected to account for over 40% of all new car sales by 2030, as affordability and infrastructure continue to improve across markets. But the shift to electric is not just about replacing fuel with batteries; it is about creating a smarter, smoother driving experience. One where location data becomes as vital as fuel once was.
Drivers now expect their car to always know the location of the nearest available charging station and where to find a parking spot. And they expect that information to be accurate, instant, and reliable. To meet these expectations, a major automotive software division initiated a modernization of its Point of Interest (POI) management platform, which provides navigation and charging services across a diverse, multi-brand vehicle fleet. To support this effort, the division collaborated with Concept Reply, the specialized IoT and digital mobility company within Reply.
The challenge
Breaking the latency barrier
For electric vehicle (EV) drivers, data accuracy is the foundation of brand trust. "Range anxiety" is often a data problem: if information about charging or parking availability is even a few minutes delayed or inaccurate, it becomes useless. Our client faced this challenge firsthand, due to a fragmented system. That’s why their software division set out to transform a patchwork of dynamic POI data from multiple providers into a unified, reliable source of truth for connected vehicles.
The legacy infrastructure relied on periodic polling: a reactive model where the vehicle requests updates at fixed intervals, often missing real-time changes. The transformation from fragmented data to real-time insights had to address the needs of multiple vehicle brands and internal teams within a large automotive group, ensuring the platform remained robust, secure, and flexible enough to meet today’s mobility expectations while supporting tomorrow’s innovations. Making that possible meant overcoming a complex mix of business and technical challenges. Some of the most important ones are outlined below:
One fleet, one truth
Unify map content, live feedback from millions of vehicles, and partner data into a single, always-current source.
Legacy still matters
Keep older model years fully supplied with POI updates while launching next-gen services for new vehicles.
Lean, future-proof communication
Design ultra-efficient gRPC microservice from scratch to stream POI updates, ensuring seamless operation even on resource-constrained in-car systems.
Platform for growth
Build an architecture that can scale to future mobility services, such as enhanced navigation intelligence.
The solution
A platform built for what’s next: enabling proactive, real-time mobility
Together, the customer and Concept Reply modernized the POI platform, originally designed around periodic polling and already handling an average of 100 million requests per day, into a cloud-native, containerized architecture that supports reliable, low-latency delivery of dynamic POI data to millions of connected vehicles across a diverse, multi-brand fleet.
At the core is a lean gRPC-based microservice layer that efficiently bridges backend services and vehicles, enabling the shift from interval-based updates to real-time streaming for a more responsive in-car experience. The solution is designed for high availability and operational simplicity at scale, supported by DevOps practices and CI/CD pipelines that streamline deployments, safeguard quality, and accelerate ongoing innovation.
The technology behind
Engineering for performance
To achieve the near real-time responsiveness required for a premium driving experience, delivering instant updates on charging, parking, and fuel changes with no delays, the team implemented a high-performance communication stack:
gRPC Framework
gRPC is used for fast, low-latency communication between microservices so the backend can reliably handle millions of concurrent vehicle connections. Because it transmits data in a highly optimized format, it reduces network overhead and server load, enabling quicker responses and more efficient real-time data delivery at scale. gRPC-based platform supports multiple ways of delivering charging, parking, and fuel dynamic data, tailored to every driving scenario:
Protocol Buffers (Protobuf)
Using a compact binary encoding like Protocol Buffers instead of traditional text-based formats (like JSON) significantly reduces the data payload. That means faster transmission and less “heavy lifting for the car’s onboard computer, while also minimizing resource consumption by optimizing bandwidth, memory, and CPU usage, making it ideal for delivering real-time data even under tight system constraints.
The result
Enhancing the premium experience
The result is a quieter, more intuitive driving experience that removes the mental overhead of EV ownership.
Reliability
Drivers can plan even long-distance trips with confidence because dashboards reflect up-to-date charging and mobility status. Real-time availability updates reduce uncertainty at the point of decision, helping drivers choose the right stop without relying on outdated information.
System integrity
By consolidating multiple data streams into a unified source of truth, the platform minimizes inconsistencies across brands and model years. Eliminating “stale” updates strengthens trust in the connected experience and reinforces the brand’s position in the mobility ecosystem.
Future-proofing
Concept Reply and its automotive partner have raised the bar for real-time, reliable POI intelligence, initially built for premium brands. With rollout continuing in 2026, the same foundation scales across the automotive group’s fleet and enables next-generation real-time charging, parking, and smart trip-planning services by 2030.
Concept Reply is an AI and IoT (AIoT) technology software development company within the Reply network. Its experts specialise in providing end-to-end business transformation solutions for the automotive, manufacturing, and smart infrastructure sectors. The company delivers software innovations to customers throughout the entire value chain, from AIoT strategy definition to implementation, rollout, and operations.