Digital e-paper road signs for EV charging piloted in Croatia

A project in Croatia is piloting a digital e-paper road sign that will inform electric vehicle (EV) drivers of the availability of EV charging stations.

Exevio, a Croatian digital solutions firm, has engaged Canadian-based electronics firm Ynvisible to produce the digital e-paper road sign.

The project was supported by the Centre of Competence for Smart Cities (Cekom), a government-backed organisation that encourages R&D in the field of smart cities which includes electric vehicles.

Electric vehicle take-up

With the increasing uptake of electric vehicles, Cekom reports a growing issue is the lack of EV chargers on the road causing charging stations to be congested.

The problem is that when an individual arrives at an EV charging station to charge their car, they find the chargers occupied. Before Ynvisible and Exevio’s digital signage solution, the only way to know if a stall was available was to use a mobile app while driving, endangering other road users.

With the implementation of the digital signs on critical locations such as significant intersections, parking entrances or above the EV stations themselves, drivers can now be informed of the availability of the charging stations, thereby lowering the need to use a smartphone while driving.

“We saw an opportunity to use electronic paper displays to achieve sustainability and autonomy. We needed a classic but new take on a sign for EV charging stations and engaged Ynvisible to produce this for us”

The digital road sign needed to be extremely low power, energy independent and send out geo-location data in order to be sustainable and autonomous on the open road. It also needed to satisfy road safety law and emit minimum visual stimuli to prevent distraction when driving, whilst also looking like a traditional traffic sign.

“We saw an opportunity to use electronic paper displays to achieve sustainability and autonomy. We needed a classic but new take on a sign for EV charging stations and engaged Ynvisible to produce this for us,” said Ivan Jokic, chief electrical engineer at Exevio.