Launch HN: Telematica (YC W22) – Plaid for Electric Vehicles

Hi HN! We’re Abhishek and Aditya, co-founders of Telematica (https://www.telematica.so). Telematica is an API that helps businesses to access battery and usage data for electric vehicles, as well as manage charging across 25+ EV brands without using any hardware devices. We also develop tools like smart charging, dynamic load balancing, and charging scheduling for EV fleets.

For better or worse, all modern EVs include built-in internet connectivity and send all vehicle data to the manufacturer’s cloud servers, effectively eliminating the need for external hardware devices and OBD II dongles. The problem is that all of this information is locked inside the car dashboard or the manufacturer’s mobile app—technologies that car companies are not the greatest at building. There is no official Tesla or Volkswagen API available for developers to use to create apps and services based on vehicle data.

Some car APIs exist, but don’t focus on EVs. The fundamental problems in EVs—range anxiety and charging management—are absent in ICE vehicles. This means that developers have to build a lot of tools on top of the car API before they can solve their actual business problems. For example, (1) charging point operators must be notified when the charging begins and receive live SoC (State of Charge) every 1 minute; (2) fleet operators need to poll data to manage their operations or perform predictive maintenance; and (3) smart charging companies and utilities must manage charging based on live charging data and energy prices.

We eliminate the need to build and maintain an additional layer of infra on top of the car API for each of the above use cases by providing webhooks, data logging, and a plug-and-play smart charging module. Our product is divided into two parts: an authorization flow to obtain user consent from the EV owner to connect their car with a third-party app, and a developer API that allows our customers to query live EV data, manage EV charging, and log data for specific endpoints.

We came up with the idea for Telematica while working on a Tesla-like trip planner for the Indian market to reduce range anxiety among EV drivers. Unlike in the US, where Tesla controls both the car and the superchargers, the Indian market is fragmented - car manufacturers lack a robust charging network. Controlling both the car and the charger allowed Tesla to answer a variety of questions, such as "Will I be able to reach my destination with my current SoC?" How many charging stops should I take? My ETA, including the charging time? and so forth.

We needed access to real-time battery and location data in order to build a smart route planner. And, to our surprise, there was no Tata API (India's largest EV OEM) that we could use directly. To address this, we reverse engineered the Tata mobile app and identified the API endpoints before developing a Plaid-like product that relies on EV owners' consent to share their data with a third party app. We had to figure out the API for each OEM separately, which was time-consuming and difficult. This made us realise that instead of building the end user app let's build a developer API that anyone in the future can use to build powerful EV apps.

Our customers range across various industries. Companies that are building the charging infrastructure or mobility apps use our API to get access to real-time battery data (SoC, range, charging status). We are used by utilities and companies that offer demand response programs to manage EV charging during peak hours. Finally, instead of purchasing expensive OBD dongles, fleet operators use us to manage their fleets and optimize their charging schedules and routing.

We charge $0.25 per EV connected with up to 10,000 API calls allowed per month. Connecting up to 10 EVs is free of charge.

We collect the account credentials to the OEM (manufacturer) account as most of the EV brands don’t have their own OAuth2. We try to only store tokens...